Colorado § 19-1-309 - Relinquishments and adoption information.

§ 19-1-309. Relinquishments and adoption information.

Except as provided in parts 3 and 4 of article 5 of this title and section 19-1-303, all records and proceedings in relinquishment or adoption shall be confidential and open to inspection upon order of the court for good cause shown or as otherwise authorized pursuant to article 5 of this title. The court shall act to preserve the anonymity of the biological parents, the adoptive parents, and the child from the general public, except as ordered by the court for good cause shown pursuant to this section or except as authorized pursuant to a designated adoption or pursuant to section 19-5-104 (2) or part 3 or 4 of article 5 of this title. A separate docket shall be maintained for relinquishment proceedings and for adoption proceedings.

Source: L. 96: Entire part added with relocations, p. 1169, § 6, effective January 1, 1997. L. 98: Entire section amended, p. 822, § 26, effective August 5. L. 99: Entire section amended, p. 1130, § 2, effective July 1.

Editor's note: This section was formerly numbered as 19-1-122.

ANNOTATION

Annotator's note. The following annotations include cases decided under former provisions similar to this section.

Section applies to adult adoption proceedings under § 14-1-101. In re W.D.A. v. City & County of Denver, 632 P.2d 582 (Colo. 1981).

Section is intended to protect confidentiality of adoption proceedings against disclosure to third parties and not to protect confidentiality among siblings or parents and, therefore, separate petitions to adopt all four children of deceased natural mother are not required. Hopp v. Patterman, 757 P.2d 164 (Colo. App. 1988).

The general assembly intended that adoption proceedings should be heard separately from a dependency and neglect proceeding even if the proceedings are related, such as a dependency and neglect proceeding that later results in an adoption. People in Interest of C.N., 2018 COA 165, 431 P.3d 1219.