An Oklahoma lawmaker says state law was broken when country singers Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert filed for divorce in secret. The majority of their divorce records are sealed from the public, contradicting an Oklahoma law that passed last November requiring divorce records to be sealed only if compelling privacy concerns outweigh public interest. Furthermore, only the sensitive portion of the records should be sealed and the judge must make the sealing order public.
Former state Rep. Aaron Stiles said he wrote the law to prevent judges from sealing records to protect their friends. He believes there are “shenanigans going on” in the sealing of the Shelton-Lambert divorce documents.
On top of the fact that almost all of Shelton and Lambert’s court documents have been sealed, the sealing order has not been made public, reported the Oklahoman. The only document that has not been sealed is an online docket naming the case as B.T.S. vs. M.L.S, the singers’ initials. The docket sheet also shows that a Pottawatomie County judge ruled in the divorce, rather than a judge from their home county.
The country crooners, who had been married four years and shared a home near Tishomingo in Johnston County, announced their divorce in a statement released last week. Shelton filed a divorce petition on July 6, and the official divorce decree was filed on July 20.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has also cautioned judges against sealing records without valid reasoning. Most divorcing couples would likely prefer to hide their divorce documents from the public, and celebrity status shouldn’t exempt anyone from a law otherwise applicable to all Oklahoma citizens.
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