About
Utah’s open records disputes, anti-SLAPP motions, and speech prosecutions are public. Almost none of it is easy to find. 1A Docket puts it in one place, with the filings, the numbers, and what the law requires.
On this page
The author
1A Docket is written and maintained by Alex Thompson, a paralegal and law student in Utah who works on public records and First Amendment matters. It began as a personal project. Every time a new question came up, about getting records out of a government agency or about being sued for speaking, the same groundwork had to be built again from scratch, because nobody had put it anywhere public. This site is where that work now lives, gathered in one place and kept current.
Mission
Two convictions sit underneath everything here: that transparency is the first and best check on the abuse of power, and that First Amendment protections should not depend on whether a person can afford a lawyer.
So the work is gathering what these statutes actually require, and what has actually been decided under them, into one place a person can reach without a subscription or a retainer. It is written for the attorney or judge meeting these statutes for the first time, the reporter covering them, the voter or candidate on the receiving end of one, the records officer trying to apply them correctly, and the legislator asking whether the laws they passed are working the way they intended.
Vision
A Utah where the rules governing speech and access are applied consistently, explained plainly, and available to everyone they affect.
Sources and method
Everything is assembled from primary sources. Case entries come from published decisions and from filings obtained from the courts or sent in directly. Statutory and legislative material links to the official bill and code pages, and case material to court records, rather than to summaries of either. Where a question is unsettled, or where the available record cannot answer it, the page says so rather than filling the gap.
The record is not complete and cannot be. Appellate decisions can be tracked down with relative ease. Trial court rulings are different: they are public, but court records are indexed by case and by party, not by the individual motions filed within a case. Unless a UPEPA motion is already known to have been filed in a given case, there is no way to go looking for it. If you know of a case or a ruling that is not here, please share it through the contact form.
Reuse
The case data is public and free to reuse, including by newsrooms and researchers. Attribution is appreciated but not required. Everything tracked here is browsable in the tracker and the document library.
The flowcharts in the guides may be reproduced with credit. If you are working on a story and want the underlying documents, or want a figure checked before you publish it, write in. Both are available on request.
Disclosure
The author works on First Amendment and public records matters in Utah and has worked with parties in some of the matters tracked here. Where that is true of a case, its case file says so.
Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing sent in creates an attorney-client relationship. The author is a paralegal and law student, not a lawyer.
The visual design and functionality of this site are created with the assistance of AI tools, guided by the mission and purpose of 1A Docket. The underlying research, drafting, verification, and review are conducted by Alex Thompson. In some cases, AI is used to help convert copy into plain language. All AI-drafted copy is closely reviewed, edited as needed, and carefully verified by the author before it goes on the site.