Lawmakers consider shortening court exhibit retention from six to five years to align schedules
Summary
Senate Bill 5021 would change the retention period for court exhibits from six years to five, bringing existing statutes into alignment. County clerks and county associations said the change reduces administrative duplication and risk of error; no final action was recorded at the hearing.
Senate Bill 5021, introduced in the Law & Justice Committee, would reduce the statutory default retention period for court exhibits from six years to five. Ryan Giannini and Timothy Gersham explained the change is intended to align two differing retention schedules in state law and reduce duplication and potential errors in clerk offices.
Tim Fitzgerald, Spokane County Clerk, and Catherine Cornwall, King County Clerk, testified on behalf of county clerks that the two RCWs currently create overlapping retention checks (one at five years and one at six) and that aligning the schedules would simplify record management and reduce the possibility of mistakes. Fitzgerald said the clerks seek to lower the destruction timeline on an older RCW to match the five-year schedule established elsewhere.
Catherine Cornwall stated clerks still obtain court orders before destroying exhibits, and that the bill does not change policies about waiting for appeal periods to expire; it simply aligns retention timelines to reduce double-processing.
The committee heard testimony in support and no final vote or amendment was recorded in the transcript.
