Lawmakers to consider peace officer personnel files at upcoming session

by Sofia Saric

Casper Star-Tribune

CASPER — The Joint Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill Monday night for consideration during the 2024 legislative session that would grant the state agency that certifies Wyoming peace officers with authority to obtain personnel files while investigating alleged misconduct.

An officer’s personnel file can contain all kinds of vital background information from use-of-force incidents to behavioral infractions to mental, physical and moral fitness.

At the same time, the Wyoming Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission is responsible for investigating or determining an officer’s initial certification, continuing certification, suspension, revocation or termination; it oversees law enforcement, detention and correctional officers, dispatchers and coroners.

Most agencies are willing to provide personnel files to POST, Executive Director Chris Walsh said Monday. Many want to be served with a subpoena first. Others simply don’t comply.

It “is difficult at times” to be responsible for Wyoming’s officers when the commission doesn’t get access to “the records that could prove or disprove allegations” during investigations, Walsh said.

“I just would like to see those records if it came up in an investigation or something suspect,” Walsh said. “...On a few occasions, there’s been significant information that exists, where I’ve subpoenaed it, and it hasn’t been honored.”

The proposed bill would make it so that POST is granted access to personnel files while making decisions or performing investigations regarding Wyoming peace officers. Agencies would have 30 days to provide the files, or the district court would intervene.

Personnel files also come into play when holding officers accountable for misconduct, so they aren’t allowed to continue working in another state after a major offense, according to executive director Allen Thompson of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police.

“It would be helpful for limiting that opportunity for – lack of a better word — bad actors moving to other organizations and agencies, which is actually a nationwide push that we’ve been in the last couple of years,” Thompson said Monday.

Similarly, it would allow for proper background checks before initial certification in the state, Thompson said.

Wyoming doesn’t “want to have bad cops in law enforcement.”

In 2024, the Wyoming Legislature will hold a budget session, which is designed to focus primarily on state budgetary issues. Non-budgetary bills have a higher threshold to overcome in the upcoming session than they do during every-other-year general sessions. Every piece of legislation that makes it through both the House and the Senate will have to be approved by two-thirds of lawmakers rather than just a simple majority.