First Adopted: August 24, 1998
Most Recently Effective: July 01, 2026
Court Operating Rule (COR) 2 | Public Access to Records of the Judicial Department
COR 002.02 | General Policy
(a) Policy. Records of the judicial proceedings of all courts are
presumed to be open to any member of the public for purposes of
inspection or copying. This policy does not apply to records that are
confidential pursuant to statute, court rule or order, or other law;
judicial or judicial staff work product, electronic communications, or
calendars; memoranda or drafts; or appellate judicial case assignments.
Court Operating Rule 2 imposes no obligation upon the judiciary to
create a data element, make a data element available electronically, or
produce non-standard reports.
(b) Obtaining
Records. Court records, information, and services shall be provided at a
time and in a manner that does not interfere with the regular business
of the courts. Confidential or sealed records shall not be made
available to the public unless otherwise ordered by the court having
custody of the records.
(1)
Direct Public Access. Case records that are not confidential pursuant
to statute, court rule, or other law, or that are not sealed pursuant to
court order, can be obtained in person from the court having custody of
the case records. Requests to copy or inspect such records shall be
made during the regular business hours of the court having custody of
the records.
(2) Remote Public Access. Case
records filed on or after July 1, 2023, that are not confidential
pursuant to statute, court rule, or other law, or are not sealed
pursuant to court order, may be obtained through remote access over the
Internet, depending on the case or document type. Remote public access
to case records shall not be available if it is contrary to a statute, a
court rule, or a court order in a particular case. This remote public
access may be temporarily suspended at any time the State Courts
Administrator determines that the operation of remote public access
adversely impacts in any manner the statewide court automation system or
court operations. The State Courts Administrator shall notify the
Supreme Court and the clerk of the Supreme Court when temporary
suspension occurs. Any suspension shall remain in effect until the State
Courts Administrator determines that such adverse impact has been
appropriately addressed and resolved.
(c)
Prohibition on Automated Collection of Data. Access to any Missouri
judicial website, including but not limited to Case.net, by a site data
scraper or any similar software intended to discover and extract data
from a website through automated, repetitive querying for the purpose of
collecting such data is expressly prohibited.
(Adopted
August 24, 1998, effective October 1, 1998. Amended February 22, 2000,
effective February 22, 2000; amended November 17, 2004, effective
January 1, 2005; amended April 13, 2011, effective January 1, 2012;
amended November 24, 2020, effective November 24, 2020; amended June 28,
2022, corrected January 31 and April 4, 2023, effective July 1, 2023; amended December 16, 2025, effective July 1, 2026.)