Committee approves bill letting Chancery Court judge fill in on district and circuit dockets

The Judiciary Committee voted to advance House Bill 54, a bill that authorizes Wyoming’s Chancery Court judge to be assigned temporarily to district or circuit court dockets under specified circumstances. The committee approved an amendment that clarified statutory titles to include the chancery court in assignment provisions.

Alisa Butler, state court administrator for the Wyoming Judicial Branch, told the committee the bill is intended to provide consistency across trial court jurisdictions and to allow judges from circuit, district and chancery courts to contribute to each other’s dockets in situations such as illness, ethical conflicts, or concentrated workload. "This provides some consistency across all of our trial court jurisdictions where judges from each of those jurisdictions, circuit, district, and chancery, can all contribute, when necessary in another jurisdiction," Butler said.

The bill revises assignment language in Wyoming statute to explicitly allow assignment of a chancery…