Kansas now requires court clerks to obscure truth in some criminal cases. That’s bad for the public.

A new state law makes it more difficult to report about ong(Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

District court clerks are the workhorses of the state’s court system. They handle the bulk of the court’s day-to-day work and interact frequently with the public. They are good people doing good and often difficult work.

Now, imagine you are one of those clerks. You are asked about a criminal case that you know exists and that the public knows exists. But due to a recent change in state law, you are not allowed to acknowledge that, effectively requiring you — unwillingly — to gaslight the public.

Unfortunately, for court clerks in Kansas, there is no need to imagine what has become twisted reality. This is because for almost a year now, as a result of a 2025 amendment to state law known as SB 204, the Legislature has prevented them from even acknowledging the existence of certain criminal cases, let alone producing them upon request.

That was required under the prior legal framework that had effectively been in place since statehood.

SB 204’s purpose was to prevent criminals from learning about a case before they are arrested, thereby reducing the likelihood that they could use that information to avoid or impede arrest. But in a misguided attempt to achieve that goal, the statute forces courts to falsely claim that a case does not exist when, in fact, it does, preemptively thwarting any attempt by the public to access traditionally open court records.

This legislatively mandated falsity and accompanying denial of access fosters distrust within our state’s communities. The Kansas Press Association also believes this law violates the public’s longstanding right under the First Amendment to know about adult criminal court records and proceedings.

One of our member newspapers, the Linn County News, experienced SB 204’s consequences firsthand while reporting late last year about a 13-year-old boy who went missing and was ultimately found dead. The News was on the scene after the disappearance and learned that charges had been filed against a suspect.

But when the News went to the Linn County District Court Clerk to obtain a copy of the criminal complaint to verify whether anyone was facing charges, its reporter was denied access.

Days later, the Kansas City Star published a story quoting from a court record in the case, indicating that a case related to the disappearance had indeed been filed.

But a subsequent attempt by the News to corroborate the case’s existence was again rebuffed, this time when the local court denied the paper’s formal request for the complaint under the Kansas Open Records Act.

The reason? Because the requested records “do not exist.”

Even though there is every reason to believe the requested records, in fact, do exist.

Without the court records, the News was left to doubt whether it could report the charges as a fact, chilling its First Amendment right to free expression, while at the same time leaving its readers in the dark about whether other children were at risk.

SB 204’s categorical, unlimited seal is what we believe violates the First Amendment. It could make sense to craft a law that puts a limited restriction on when the public, and by extension the press, would know that a case has been filed. For example, reference to cases could be omitted from any publicly available online database for a limited number of days, or until an arrest warrant has been executed. Under such circumstances, existence of a case could still be verified at the courthouse.

As it stands, SB 204 impairs the public’s right to know in a way that we believe must be challenged. Although the state’s court clerks did not write this law, they are the ones who carry it out.

Thus, late last week, the News filed a lawsuit in Linn County District Court under the First Amendment challenging the Legislature’s requirement that court personnel deny access to and the existence of certain records. The lawsuit is against the court personnel in their official capacities only.

Let me be clear. This is not the fault of the courts or the district court clerks. This is the result of a bill that may have had good intentions but has led to less transparency and has put good people in bad positions.

It is regrettable that the News has no choice but to raise this issue in court. But transparency is indispensable to public confidence, and freedom of expression cannot endure when the government compels falsehood in place of truth.

Emily Bradbury is the executive director of the Kansas Press Association and Kansas Newspaper Foundation. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.