Wyoming
Wyo. Stat. § 14-3-205 — Wyoming mandatory-reporting statute
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- No
- Confessional exemption?
- Yes
- Statute
- Wyo. Stat. § 14-3-205
- Clergy named
- All-person
- Pending
- —
Wyoming's mandatory-reporting law says any person who knows or has reasonable cause to believe a child has been abused or neglected must report immediately to a child protective agency or local law enforcement. Clergy are covered the same way any member of the public is covered. The statute itself, Wyo. Stat. § 14-3-205(a), does not name clergy as a special category and says nothing at all about the clergy-penitent privilege. That is where the architecture gets complicated. A separate evidence provision, § 14-3-210, strips most privileges in child-abuse proceedings, but expressly keeps the clergy-penitent privilege alive by cross-referencing § 1-12-101(a)(ii). The reporting section reads as universal. The evidence section quietly keeps the carveout intact. The legislature has not touched either provision since a 2013 penalty-increase bill failed without addressing the privilege. Wyoming's gap is not a repeal effort or a pending bill. It is the sustained absence of any legislative move to reconcile what the reporting statute says with what the evidence statute preserves. Reform here is the work UCO exists to advance in every state that has let this gap sit unchallenged.