first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2024-03-27 17:50:34.182479+00:00,2024-03-27 17:50:34.182479+00:00,"New York courts grant, then overturn prior restraint on documentary release",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/new-york-courts-grant-then-overturn-prior-restraint-on-documentary-release/,2024-03-27 17:50:29.738541+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2024-02-22,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"
A&E Television Networks was briefly barred from distributing its new documentary, “Where Is Wendy Williams?”, after a New York justice granted a temporary restraining order against the company on Feb. 22, 2024. The order was reversed the following day.
According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, A&E worked with former TV host Williams and her family to chronicle her life for nearly two years following the end of her talk show, including her subsequent health issues and placement under guardianship. Williams is credited as an executive producer on the documentary.
A trailer for the four-episode documentary aired on Feb. 2. Nearly three weeks later, Williams’ court-appointed guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, filed a lawsuit against A&E seeking a temporary restraining order to halt its planned release and requesting that the case proceed under seal. A New York Supreme Court justice granted both requests on Feb. 22 without providing A&E the opportunity to argue against them.
Morrissey argued that Williams — who has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia — was not competent to sign a talent agreement with producer Entertainment One and that the documentary was exploitative and could permanently damage Williams’ reputation.
The order forbade A&E from releasing the documentary or any further footage, trailers, dialogue or communications to anyone other than Morrissey or their respective attorneys without court approval.
An attorney representing A&E filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the court the following day, arguing that the restraining order constituted a prior restraint and that Morrissey sought to prevent the airing of criticisms of her and the guardianship process.
“At a time when guardianship proceedings are being debated in our own State legislature and through headlines across the nation, the Order impermissibly gags Defendants from publishing speech that is unquestionably a matter of public concern,” attorney Rachel Strom wrote. She added that the restraint also deprived Williams and her family of “their right to speak out about her experiences, including and especially to criticize her care and treatment under a guardianship regime—the same regime which seeks to silence her now.”
Strom argued that Williams, her family and her manager were actively involved in the production of the documentary and that Morrissey had been aware of the documentary for more than a year. She also noted that, without an emergency reversal, A&E would be unable to proceed with the documentary’s planned release on Feb. 24, at great financial and reputational cost.
Appellate Justice Peter Moulton lifted the restraining order on Feb. 23, writing in a decision that was briefly made public that the restraining order was “an impermissible prior restraint on speech that violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” Moulton, however, upheld the decision to keep the court proceedings under seal.
The documentary was released on A&E’s Lifetime channel as planned on Feb. 24 and 25, but the lawsuit remains ongoing.
Attorneys for Morrissey and A&E did not respond to requests for comment.
A new A&E Television Networks documentary about former TV host Wendy Williams, pictured above at a premiere in 2019, was briefly barred from airing after a New York judge granted a temporary restraining order on Feb. 22, 2024.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,[],A&E Television Networks,,,, 2024-01-31 16:54:41.617437+00:00,2024-03-01 19:30:53.875825+00:00,Judge orders Oregonian to destroy Nike lawsuit documents,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/judge-orders-oregonian-to-destroy-nike-lawsuit-documents/,2024-03-01 19:30:53.780275+00:00,,,(2024-02-28 00:00:00+00:00) Judge allows Oregonian to keep Nike lawsuit documents,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2024-01-26,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"A federal judge ordered The Oregonian on Jan. 26, 2024, to return documents related to a gender discrimination lawsuit against Nike and destroy any copies, after the plaintiff’s lawyer inadvertently sent them to a reporter on Jan. 19.
Judge Jolie A. Russo said in her order that the Portland, Oregon-based daily newspaper must agree “not to disseminate that information in any way; and to destroy any copies in its possession” by Jan. 31.
That publishing gag was vacated, or withdrawn, on Jan. 30 by another judge, who ruled that Russo must hold a hearing to allow The Oregonian to make arguments against the order before reviewing the issue again. The paper, in a Jan. 29 appeal, had argued that Russo did not allow the news organization to be heard in court, which it called a “quintessential due process violation.”
Russo held a hearing Jan. 30 and ordered the plaintiff’s attorneys to respond by Feb. 6 to arguments made by The Oregonian in its appeal.
“Prior restraint by government goes against every principle of the free press in this country,” Therese Bottomly, editor and vice president of content for The Oregonian, said in a statement emailed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “This is highly unusual, and we will defend our First Amendment rights in court.”
In its Jan. 29 appeal, The Oregonian argued that because it is a “non-party intervener” and has no stake in the outcome of the lawsuit, it is not subject to a protective order covering the documents.
“The Documents contain no national security implications, there is no risk of bodily harm or safety to any individual, and there are no competing constitutional rights at play—The Oregonian is the only one whose constitutional rights are on the line,” the filing read.
The Oregonian was writing an article, based on its independent reporting, about a culture of sexual harassment at Nike, when the attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit accidentally shared the documents in an email attachment.
The judge said the documents were subject to the case’s protective order, which makes them unviewable to the public. Other documents have been unsealed after a coalition of news outlets, including The Oregonian, filed a motion in court in April 2022.
A judge ordered The Oregonian to destroy documents about a gender discrimination lawsuit against Nike that were inadvertently released to the news outlet. The publishing gag, or prior restraint, has been withdrawn until another hearing can be held.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,struck down,True,[],The Oregonian,,,, 2024-03-14 18:46:42.415061+00:00,2024-03-14 18:46:42.415061+00:00,Judge lifts Indybay gag order over voided search warrant,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/judge-lifts-indybay-gag-order-over-voided-search-warrant/,2024-03-14 18:46:42.230016+00:00,,LegalOrder object (273),,"Subpoena/Legal Order, Prior Restraint",,,,,,2024-01-24,False,San Francisco,California (CA),37.77493,-122.41942,"San Francisco police on Jan. 24, 2024, obtained a warrant to search independent news outlet Indybay’s electronic data, along with a 90-day gag order preventing Indybay from discussing or writing about its existence, according to court documents.
The warrant, which police later decided against pursuing, sought to identify the author of an Indybay post who claimed to have vandalized the San Francisco Police Credit Union.
The nondisclosure order was ultimately lifted on March 7 by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Linda Colfax, allowing Indybay to speak publicly about the warrant. Also on March 7, the San Francisco Police Department said it had decided not to act on the warrant due to potential First Amendment issues.
The warrant stemmed from a Jan. 18 post on Indybay, published under the pseudonym “some anarchists,” in which the author took responsibility for having smashed windows at the credit union earlier that day in an “act of vengeance” on the one-year anniversary of the police shooting death of an environmental activist in Atlanta.
Indybay, a volunteer-run, community-sourced newswire also known as the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, allows anyone to self-publish articles, photos, videos and other material on the site. The posts are reviewed by Indybay editors, who according to the site’s editorial policies may combine them, make edits for spelling or grammar, or hide them if they are deemed “false, libelous, abusive … or hate speech.”
On Jan. 24, the police obtained the search warrant, which required Indybay to turn over information that would help identify the author of the story, such as IP addresses, website login credentials, and email addresses and phone numbers.
Indybay asked the police to withdraw the warrant on Jan. 29, arguing that it was illegal under California’s shield law and the federal Privacy Protection Act, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided the outlet with pro bono legal assistance. The SFPD told Indybay on Jan. 31 that it would take no further action on the warrant.
Indybay filed a motion on Feb. 22 not only to formally quash the warrant but also the nondisclosure order — which remained in effect — arguing that it violated the First Amendment as a “content-based prior restraint on speech.”
Colfax vacated the gag order on March 7, while also confirming that the search warrant had become void on Feb. 3, “as no search occurred and no records were received.”
EFF Staff Attorney F. Mario Trujillo told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an email that “SFPD and the judge did not end up taking a position” on the argument that the search warrant was unlawful. “SFPD, instead, took the position that—regardless of whether the warrant was unlawful when it was first issued—it became void after 10 days when SFPD declined to pursue it further in the face of Indybay’s resistance,” he added.
Trujillo went on to say that Colfax supported that interpretation in her order, adding, “It was important for the judge to confirm that and give Indybay certainty on the record.”
SFPD, in a March 7 news release, said that when Police Chief William “Bill” Scott learned of the warrant, he “immediately ordered officers to not pursue it over questions about possible First Amendment and Freedom of the Press issues.”
The statement added that the police department is committed to supporting the free press and has policies and training related to California’s shield law. The SFPD had previously pledged to ensure that all employees were properly trained on journalist protections with regard to police searches and subpoenas as part of a settlement after a police raid and search of a journalist’s home in 2019.
A portion of a March 7, 2024, order by a San Francisco judge lifting a gag order that prohibited Indybay from disclosing a search warrant issued in January.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,Institution,warrant,State,struck down,False,[],Indybay,,,, 2023-12-12 19:52:10.707685+00:00,2023-12-12 19:52:10.707685+00:00,"Colorado reporter ignores order to return, destroy legally obtained court filings",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/colorado-reporter-ignores-order-to-return-destroy-legally-obtained-court-filings/,2023-12-12 19:52:10.577887+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,Justin Wingerter (BusinessDen),,2023-11-30,False,Denver,Colorado (CO),39.73915,-104.9847,"BusinessDen reporter Justin Wingerter, who covers courts and white-collar crime for the local business news site, was ordered on Nov. 30, 2023, to return or delete all copies of legal filings he had obtained from a court in Denver, Colorado. He ignored the order and on Dec. 4 published an article with details about the underlying case containing information he obtained from the court filings.
Wingerter told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he had been reviewing recently filed lawsuits on Nov. 28 when he noticed something unusual: a civil case with a pending motion for it to be “suppressed,” more commonly referred to as sealed. He then requested records from the case.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get the documents,” Wingerter said. “The nature of a records request is you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get back, but you make the request because you’d rather be told ‘no’ than to not file it at all.”
A clerk of the court later called to notify him that the request had been granted, and, after paying 25 cents per page over the phone, Wingerter received the files via email the following morning, Nov. 29.
That same evening, however, District Judge Kandace Cecilia Gerdes granted the plaintiff’s motion to suppress. When Gerdes learned that Wingerter had obtained the records before they were sealed, she issued a second order on Nov. 30 that read:
“The Court hereby orders that all documents obtained by any media outlet, including by not limited to those obtained by Justin Wingerter of BusinessDen, shall be returned to the Court by hand-delivery, specifically Courtroom 275 … by 4:00 p.m., on November 30, 2023. All electronic copies of said documents shall be permanently deleted from servers as well. Failure to do so will be considered contempt of this Court’s Order.”
The order further stipulated that any subsequent attempts to access copies of the filings without Gerdes’ written permission would also be considered contempt of court.
Shortly after the order was issued, Wingerter said the clerk of the court alerted him to the order and told him that he was expected to comply.
Ashley Kissinger, an attorney representing Wingerter and BusinessDen, filed a motion on Dec. 1 notifying the court that her clients would not be complying and arguing that the order constituted a “classic prior restraint.”
“Mr. Wingerter obtained access to these court records simply by asking the Court for them. He submitted an open records request to the Court through an online form,” Kissinger wrote. “This is ordinary, lawful, newsgathering activity.”
Wingerter told the Tracker that, after discussing it internally, BusinessDen decided to push ahead with his coverage.
“We don’t feel that the judge has the power of prior restraint,” Wingerter said. “So we didn’t see any reason to stop the reporting process. We just continued doing our jobs.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of Colorado media organizations sent a letter on Dec. 11 to Gerdes in support of Kissinger’s motion.
“Because each minute an unconstitutional prior restraint remains in place constitutes a separate and distinct First Amendment violation causing ‘irreparable harm’ to BusinessDen and its readers, we urge the Court to lift its prior restraint order immediately,” the letter read.
Kissinger told the Tracker that nothing has been filed in the case since, but that she believes the parties to the underlying case have until Dec. 22 to respond to her motion to vacate the prior restraint.
A portion of the Nov. 30, 2023, court order requiring BusinessDen reporter Justin Wingerter to return or permanently delete filings he legally obtained through a records request. His attorney asserts the order is “a classic prior restraint.”
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,ignored,True,[],,,,, 2023-11-01 18:09:18.890354+00:00,2024-02-29 17:20:41.283727+00:00,Alabama reporter faces felony charge for article on grand jury investigation,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/alabama-reporter-faces-felony-charge-for-article-on-grand-jury-investigation/,2024-02-29 17:20:41.176804+00:00,"publishing: revealing, disclosing or divulging grand jury information (charges pending as of 2023-10-27)",,(2023-10-30 13:02:00+00:00) Alabama reporter placed under prior restraint as condition of bail,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Prior Restraint",,,,Don Fletcher (Atmore News),,2023-10-27,False,Atmore,Alabama (AL),31.02379,-87.49387,"Atmore News reporter Don Fletcher was arrested in Atmore, Alabama, on Oct. 27, 2023, and charged with a felony for his reporting on an ongoing grand jury investigation, the newspaper reported.
Fletcher authored an article on Oct. 25 concerning an Escambia County investigation into allegations of mismanagement of federal COVID relief funds by the county Board of Education. The article referenced statements made by District Attorney Steve Billy at an Oct. 12 school board meeting confirming that the superintendent would not be brought before a grand jury.
The article also reported that the outlet had obtained documents stating that Billy had issued a subpoena seeking copies of checks labeled as “COVID” payments or bonuses.
Atmore News reported on Facebook that both Fletcher and the newspaper’s publisher and co-owner Sherry Digmon were arrested on Oct. 27, charged with revealing, disclosing or divulging grand jury information, a felony, and released about six hours later after paying $10,000 bonds.
When reached by phone, Fletcher confirmed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the two had an initial hearing on Oct. 30 but directed all further inquiries to their attorney, Earnest White. White declined to comment when reached on Oct. 31.
Veronica “Ashley” Fore, a bookkeeper for the county school system, was also arrested and is charged with providing grand jury information to the media, according to WALA-TV. It was not immediately clear how Fore obtained the information.
Neither District Attorney Billy nor the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests for comment.
Atmore News reporter Don Fletcher and publisher Sherry Digmon were arrested on Oct. 27, 2023, and charged with felonies for reporting on an ongoing grand jury investigation in Escambia County, Alabama.
",arrested and released,Escambia County Sheriff’s Office,2023-10-27,2023-10-27,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,pending,False,[],,,,, 2023-11-01 18:17:04.716394+00:00,2024-02-29 17:20:58.675278+00:00,Alabama publisher charged over report on grand jury investigation,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/alabama-publisher-charged-over-report-on-grand-jury-investigation/,2024-02-29 17:20:58.568535+00:00,"publishing: revealing, disclosing or divulging grand jury information (charges pending as of 2023-10-27)",,(2023-10-30 13:04:00+00:00) Alabama publisher placed under prior restraint as condition of bail,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Prior Restraint",,,,Sherry Digmon (Atmore News),,2023-10-27,False,Atmore,Alabama (AL),31.02379,-87.49387,"Atmore News co-owner and publisher Sherry Digmon was arrested in Atmore, Alabama, on Oct. 27, 2023, and charged with a felony for publishing an article on an ongoing grand jury investigation, the newspaper reported.
A reporter for the paper, Don Fletcher, authored an article on Oct. 25 concerning an Escambia County investigation into allegations of mismanagement of federal COVID relief funds by the county Board of Education. The article referenced statements made by District Attorney Steve Billy at an Oct. 12 school board meeting confirming that the superintendent would not be brought before a grand jury.
The article also reported that the outlet had obtained documents stating that Billy had issued a subpoena seeking copies of checks labeled as “COVID” payments or bonuses.
Atmore News reported on Facebook that both Digmon and Fletcher were arrested on Oct. 27, charged with revealing, disclosing or divulging grand jury information, a felony, and released about six hours later after paying $10,000 bonds.
Fletcher, who took a call to the newsroom from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, confirmed that he and Digmon had an initial hearing on Oct. 30 but directed all further inquiries to their attorney, Earnest White. White declined to comment when reached on Oct. 31.
Veronica “Ashley” Fore, a bookkeeper for the county school system, was also arrested and is charged with providing grand jury information to the media, according to WALA-TV. It was not immediately clear how Fore obtained the information.
Neither District Attorney Billy nor the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests for comment.
Atmore News reporter Don Fletcher and publisher Sherry Digmon were arrested on Oct. 27, 2023, and charged with felonies for reporting on an ongoing grand jury investigation in Escambia County, Alabama.
",arrested and released,Escambia County Sheriff’s Office,2023-10-27,2023-10-27,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,pending,False,[],,,,, 2023-10-11 19:21:57.276749+00:00,2023-12-01 21:45:51.368586+00:00,Judge again bars media from publishing on expelled student or his lawsuit,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/judge-again-bars-media-from-publishing-on-expelled-student-or-his-lawsuit/,2023-12-01 21:45:51.276995+00:00,,,(2023-11-28 10:45:00+00:00) Judge ends restraining order; allows press to publish on UNC suit,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2023-10-10,False,Asheville,North Carolina (NC),35.60095,-82.55402,"A U.S. district judge in Asheville, North Carolina, issued a second temporary restraining order on Oct. 10, 2023, barring members of the press from publishing about a former student who is suing the University of North Carolina System and multiple university administrators, according to court records.
The plaintiff, who filed the suit on Feb. 15 under the pseudonym Jacob Doe, alleges that he was wrongfully expelled from UNC-Chapel Hill after being accused of sexual assault by four undergraduate women.
When filing the suit, Doe simultaneously filed the motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, requesting that no information be released by the defendants or published by the media. Chief U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger granted that temporary restraining order on Feb. 22, citing possible irreparable harm to the plaintiff.
Immediately after the restraint went into effect, however, the parties jointly filed to withdraw the motion and Reidinger dissolved the order on March 1.
Doe refiled his motion seven months later, after UNC informed him that it had received a public records request seeking to identify him, according to court records. On Oct. 10, District Judge Max Cogburn Jr. granted the motion.
As with the initial prior restraint, the university is barred from disclosing any information about the disciplinary proceedings at the heart of the lawsuit. UNC is also required to instruct news outlets that they are barred from publishing any information about Doe or his disciplinary proceedings that they may receive.
Students sit on library steps at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2018. As part of a 2023 lawsuit against UNC, a judge issued a new restraining order barring media from publishing information about a former student or his expulsion.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,dropped,False,[],Media,,,, 2023-11-30 20:30:54.001585+00:00,2023-11-30 20:30:54.001585+00:00,Media barred from identifying officer working DeSantis security,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/media-barred-from-identifying-officer-working-desantis-security/,2023-11-30 20:30:49.205351+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,Grant Stern (Occupy Democrats),,2023-08-30,False,Miami,Florida (FL),25.77427,-80.19366,"A Florida circuit court judge issued a prior restraint on Aug. 30, 2023, barring members of the press from publishing anything that might identify an officer who had provided security for Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought by Grant Stern, the executive editor of the news arm of progressive political organization Occupy Democrats, after he and a columnist were barred by a plainclothes officer from attending the governor’s Sept. 22, 2022, press conference at Miami Dade College.
The officer, who refused to identify himself at the time, filmed the pair of journalists on a cellphone and ordered a uniformed officer to remove them from the building. Stern made an on-the-spot records request for a copy of the recording and ultimately filed a formal records request to identify the plainclothes officer.
The Miami Police Department refused to identify the officer, asserting that he was working undercover, as distinct from simply in civilian clothes, and was therefore exempt from such disclosures. Stern filed the lawsuit in October 2022 challenging the decision.
During a hearing on Aug. 30, 2023, Circuit Court Judge Migna Sanchez-Llorens told the parties she would reserve judgment on the distinction. Attorneys for the city then asked that — if the judge were to rule that the officer was working undercover — the images and videos filed as evidence in the suit be sealed, redacted or blurred out to protect his identity.
Sanchez-Llorens noted an objection raised by Stern’s attorney but heard no arguments before ruling that Stern’s photograph and any other identifiers of the officer would be placed under seal until she ruled on the question of his status.
The following day, the judge expanded the gag order to include all media and said that no one should disclose the identity of the officer. “This means that all persons shall refrain from releasing name, photos, or badge number of the undercover agent,” Sanchez-Llorens wrote.
“[The judge] did all of that without briefing, motion, nothing,” Stern told the Tracker. “They [city’s attorneys] merely suggested, just to get a sense of the court, if they could get a further order after the ruling. That’s all they asked for. She went ahead and did the rest.”
Stern told the Tracker that there is virtually no limit on how long the judge can reserve judgment, and that he and other media will remain gagged until she issues a ruling.
“This is two out of the three branches of Florida government now censoring this,” Stern said. “If the state doesn’t want you around they exercise every lever of government to prevent state officials from facing tough questions.”
Stern subsequently filed a motion asking the judge to recuse herself from the case, arguing that not only did she issue her order without following proper procedure but had also prejudged that the officer was working undercover, showing bias in the case. Sanchez-Llorens denied the motion, which Stern has since appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida.
A portion of the order, filed Aug. 31, 2023, ordering Occupy Democrats’ Executive Editor Grant Stern and all other media not to publish photos or other identifying information for a police officer who had worked security for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,pending,False,[],Media,,,, 2023-08-09 19:35:06.383819+00:00,2023-08-09 19:35:06.383819+00:00,"North Carolina judge seizes reporter’s notes, issues gag order",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/north-carolina-judge-seizes-reporters-notes-issues-gag-order/,2023-08-09 19:35:06.253332+00:00,,,,"Prior Restraint, Equipment Search or Seizure",,work product: count of 1,,Kenwyn Caranna (News & Record),,2023-07-28,False,Greensboro,North Carolina (NC),36.07264,-79.79198,"Kenwyn Caranna, a government reporter for the News & Record, was covering a juvenile court hearing on July 28, 2023, when a North Carolina judge seized her notes and told her she was under a gag order.
News & Record Executive Editor Dimon Kendrick-Holmes wrote that Caranna had been observing proceedings in the Greensboro courtroom most of the day, the only exception being a closed hearing when all observers were ordered to leave the courtroom.
District Court Judge Ashley Watlington-Simms reportedly asked Caranna to identify herself later in the day. When Caranna did so, the judge denied the reporter’s request to speak with an attorney and left the courtroom to consult with Chief District Court Judge Teresa Vincent.
When she returned, Watlington-Simms told Caranna she was under a gag order. The judge then directed bailiffs to seize Caranna’s notes from the day’s proceedings, telling the journalist she could appeal the decision on a later date.
Watlington-Simms entered a formal protective order on Aug. 2, which stated that the prior restraint was necessary to protect confidential information from the juvenile court cases, according to the News & Record. The order also sealed Caranna’s notes and barred her from disclosing information from the cases she observed.
The News & Record has requested a hearing to vacate the gag order as well as unseal and return Caranna’s notes.
When reached by email, Caranna directed the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to a newsletter about the ruling, but declined to comment further. The newsletter reported that a district trial court coordinator refused to release a copy of the protective order, stating that it is confidential.
West Virginia television station WSAZ, which had sued a state agency over access to documents that included a contentious draft letter terminating a senior official, was freed to publish the letter on Aug. 28, 2023, after Kanawha County Circuit Judge Kenneth Ballard lifted a temporary protective order.
In May 2022, WSAZ sued to access documents from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources after the department had rebuffed an earlier Freedom of Information Act request. The station was, in part, seeking records related to the termination of the agency’s deputy secretary by its top administrator.
Ballard ruled in favor of the station, requiring the release of the requested documents, with the exception of the draft termination letter itself. But when the agency sent a PDF with hundreds of pages to the station in July 2023, it inadvertently included the letter. When the agency learned of the error, it asked that the letter be deleted. The station refused to delete it, so the agency asked the court to prevent its publication.
On July 14, Ballard issued a temporary protective order barring disclosure of the letter’s contents. Ultimately, however, he determined a permanent bar would represent an unconstitutional prior restraint, so in August he lifted the protective order, allowing the station to publish the letter.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held,” the judge wrote in his decision, “that the news media has a First Amendment right, absent the government’s demonstration of a ‘state interest of the highest order,’ to publish information about a matter of public concern that it has lawfully obtained, regardless of whether the news media’s source violated the law in providing that information.”
Claire Magee Ferguson, an attorney with WSAZ’s parent company Gray Media, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, “Judge Ballard’s ruling underlined that our daily pursuit of public information is a necessary, worthy fight. WSAZ and Gray Media were thrilled to receive judicial confirmation that the ‘overriding interest of justice’ inevitably sides with free speech.”
The agency did not respond to requests for comment from the Tracker.
A portion of the decision, filed Aug. 28, 2023, lifting the temporary restraining order that held West Virginia television station WSAZ couldn’t publish a government document it received by mistake.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,struck down,True,[],WSAZ-TV,,,, 2023-06-05 19:02:17.648385+00:00,2023-12-21 20:18:02.779115+00:00,St. Louis Post-Dispatch barred from publishing mistakenly released report,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/st-louis-post-dispatch-barred-from-publishing-mistakenly-released-report/,2023-12-21 20:18:02.687973+00:00,,,(2023-09-15 14:25:00+00:00) Judge again bars paper from publishing,Prior Restraint,,,,Katie Kull (St. Louis Post-Dispatch),,2023-05-23,False,St. Louis,Missouri (MO),38.62727,-90.19789,"A Missouri judge on May 23, 2023, barred the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one of its reporters from publishing details from the mental health evaluation of a man set to stand trial for allegedly killing a police officer in 2020.
Post-Dispatch reporter Katie Kull obtained a copy of a mental health report on the defendant, Thomas J. Kinworthy Jr., when it was filed in St. Louis City Circuit Court on May 18. According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, two copies of the report were filed by mistake, with one incorrectly made available to the public.
Kull contacted the public defender representing Kinworthy for comment on May 22, the Riverfront Times reported, and the attorney immediately filed a request for a temporary restraining order. The following day, Judge Elizabeth Hogan granted the order, barring Kull, the Post-Dispatch and any of its employees from publishing about the report.
In a tweet, Kull wrote, “I tried to write a story but instead I found myself under a court order.”
On May 23, the Post-Dispatch filed an initial response to the order, asking that it be dissolved and noting that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected such orders when the documents were legally obtained.
“This is true even when statutes prohibit dissemination of such information, as is the case here,” attorneys for the Post-Dispatch wrote. “It is also true when information is inadvertently released that should not have been released, which is the apparent situation here.”
Neither Kull nor the Post-Dispatch responded to requests for comment.
Freedom of the Press Foundation, which oversees the operation of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, condemned the prior restraint.
“On the rare occasion when the government has a legitimate basis to withhold records from the public, the onus is on the government, not the press, to ensure that they’re withheld,” Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote. “That’s why the Court has held at least four times that once the government releases records to the press, even accidentally, it cannot claw them back or prohibit or punish their publication, regardless of how sensitive the records may be.”
The restraining order will remain in place as the case progresses, according to the Times, and the Post-Dispatch has until June 12 to submit motions in opposition.
A portion of the May 22, 2023, motion for a prior restraint on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and its reporter Katie Kull. A Missouri judge granted the order, barring the newspaper from publishing details from a mistakenly released mental health report.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,pending,True,[],St. Louis Post-Dispatch,,,, 2023-05-08 20:16:33.471613+00:00,2023-07-13 22:25:55.214976+00:00,Arizona judge grants state senator’s restraining order against journalist,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/arizona-judge-grants-state-senators-restraining-order-against-journalist/,2023-07-13 22:25:55.100764+00:00,,,(2023-05-10 21:00:00+00:00) Judge rejects Arizona senator’s restraining order against journalist,Prior Restraint,,,,Camryn Sanchez (Arizona Capitol Times),,2023-04-19,False,Flagstaff,Arizona (AZ),35.19807,-111.65127,"Arizona Capitol Times reporter Camryn Sanchez was ordered to have no contact with state Sen. Wendy Rogers after the lawmaker obtained a restraining order against her on April 19, 2023.
The Capitol Times reported that Sanchez, who covers the state senate, was investigating whether Rogers lives in the Flagstaff-area district she was elected in 2020 to represent. The senator had purchased a home in Chandler and listed Tempe as her place of residence in the title documents, not Flagstaff. But Rogers had listed Flagstaff as her home on her nominating paperwork and campaign finance report. Both Chandler and Tempe are located near Phoenix, approximately two-and-a-half hours from Flagstaff.
Sanchez traveled to both the Chandler and Tempe homes in an attempt to identify where the senator was living, ringing the doorbells and speaking with neighbors, according to the Capitol Times. Sanchez declined to comment, citing advice from the newspaper’s attorneys.
Flagstaff Justice Court Magistrate Judge Amy Criddle granted the restraining order on April 19 following a hearing without Sanchez being notified or allowed the opportunity to speak in her own defense, according to the Capitol Times.
Rogers’ petition for an injunction against harassment not only requested that Sanchez be barred from approaching the senator’s homes, but also asked that the reporter be barred from entering the Arizona Senate building, the Capitol Times reported. Rogers had also asked Senate leadership to revoke Sanchez’s access to the floor in March, but Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen declined, instead directing the reporter not to approach Rogers on the floor.
On April 20, Rogers tweeted a copy of the restraining order and doorbell camera screenshots of Sanchez at her homes, calling the reporter’s behavior “creepy” and “bizarre.” In a statement by Rogers released by the Arizona Senate Republicans the same day, the lawmaker alleged that she was fearful for her physical safety.
“I don’t know this reporter personally, I don’t know what she is capable of, and I don’t believe anyone in their right mind would show up uninvited to my home at night,” Rogers said in the statement. “Therefore, I don’t trust that this person wouldn’t lash out and try to physically harm me in some fashion.”
Rogers did not respond to a voicemail requesting comment.
Society of Professional Journalists Phoenix Chapter President Tim Eigo released a statement supporting Sanchez, writing that she was engaging in standard journalistic newsgathering.
“Senator Rogers has made unfounded suggestions that the reporter may be a danger to the senator. But Sanchez was doing nothing more than her job as a journalist, inquiring into the accurate residence of a lawmaker,” Eigo wrote. “In the reporting process, she reached out to the senator for comment and clarification. It is that process, done by hundreds of reporters every day on hundreds of stories, that Senator Rogers has suggested is a criminal act.”
Capitol Times Publisher Michael Gorman condemned the no contact order in an op-ed for the newspaper, stating that it was an unconstitutional prior restraint.
“The petition and injunction were not about the Senator’s personal safety but were about silencing the press in direct contravention of the First Amendment,” Gorman wrote.
Gorman added that the Capitol Times intends to challenge the injunction. Executive Editor Gary Grado told Freedom of the Press Foundation, which oversees the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that a hearing on the restraining order is scheduled for May 10.
Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers obtained a restraining order against reporter Camryn Sanchez on April 19, 2023, and tweeted it, alleging that the Arizona Capitol Times journalist was harassing her by investigating where she lives.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,None,,,,, 2023-02-28 18:43:10.249527+00:00,2023-03-01 17:36:58.959821+00:00,Judge bars media from publishing on expelled student suing UNC system,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/judge-bars-media-from-publishing-on-expelled-student-suing-unc-system/,2023-03-01 17:36:58.886857+00:00,,,(2023-03-01 12:27:00+00:00) Judge lifts order barring media from publishing on former student suing UNC system,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2023-02-22,False,Asheville,North Carolina (NC),35.60095,-82.55402,"An Asheville judge issued an order barring members of the press from publishing about a former student who is suing the University of North Carolina System and multiple university administrators on Feb. 22, 2023, according to court records.
The plaintiff, who filed the suit on Feb. 15 under the pseudonym Jacob Doe, alleges that he was wrongfully expelled from UNC Chapel Hill after being accused of sexual assault by four undergraduate women.
When filing the suit, Doe simultaneously filed the motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, requesting that no information be released by the defendants or published by the media. Those filings appear to have been sealed and are not available for public review.
Chief United States District Judge Martin Reidinger granted the temporary restraining order on Feb. 22, citing possible irreparable harm to the plaintiff. The order bars the defendants from disclosing any information about the disciplinary proceedings at the heart of the lawsuit and requires them to inform media outlets about the restraint.
The order also requires the defendants to instruct news outlets that “they are prohibited from publishing any information concerning the Plaintiff, the disciplinary proceedings, or the outcomes of such proceedings.” It is unclear which media outlets, if any, were informed of the order.
Immediately after the restraint went into effect, the parties jointly filed to withdraw the motion, asking the judge to dissolve the TRO and cancel a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 7.
As of publication the restraining order remains in effect.
Students walk across the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in this 2018 file photo. As part of a lawsuit against the university system, a judge approved a motion barring media from publishing information about a former student or his expulsion.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,dropped,False,None,Media,,,, 2023-01-17 16:56:48.597929+00:00,2023-01-17 16:56:48.597929+00:00,Texas judge vacates order limiting murder trial coverage,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/texas-judge-vacates-order-limiting-murder-trial-coverage/,2023-01-17 16:56:48.471282+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2023-01-09,False,Waco,Texas (TX),31.54933,-97.14667,"A judge in Waco, Texas, issued a sweeping gag order on Jan. 9, 2023, restricting media coverage ahead of a retrial in a murder case. The order was vacated two days later after attorneys for local broadcaster KWTX successfully argued that it amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint, the outlet reported.
Judge David Hodges’ order prohibited the press from reporting on basic facts about the case, including testimony or evidence from the initial trial in 2015, that it resulted in a conviction, the fact that the case was reversed or the reason behind the reversal. It also barred any reporting on any pretrial rulings in the case.
The case — which was set to begin on Jan. 9 — was postponed citing concerns that there would not be insufficient jurors from which to select a jury, according to KWTX.
The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that the gag order forced it to hold its reporting on the postponement.
Attorneys for CBS-affiliate KWTX sent a three-page letter to the court arguing against the order the same day it was issued, according to the outlet. KWTX Vice President and General Manager Josh Young declined to comment when reached by email.
Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, told the outlet that the order would have infringed on First Amendment rights and Hodges was right to lift the restrictions on the press.
“Journalists have a right — and a duty — to cover what’s going on at the courthouse to keep the public informed,” Shannon said. “It’s understandable that the judge wants to ensure a fair trial and try to select a local jury, but attempting to restrain what the news media reports is not the answer.”
Pennsylvania journalist Jerry Geleff, host of The Exeter Underground podcast and publisher of The Exeter Examiner, was ordered on Dec. 15, 2022, to take down reporting on a leaked document and destroy copies of it.
In July 2022, Geleff filed a public records request for a report from an investigation into allegations of harassment against a Township Supervisor. His request and subsequent appeal were denied. During a Dec. 14 episode of the Underground, Geleff announced that he had obtained excerpts of the report and read sections aloud. He also published images of the first page and the last two pages on his local news website, the Examiner, which transitioned to Facebook-only in early 2023.
According to court records reviewed by the Tracker, an attorney for the Township emailed Geleff on Dec. 15 at 10:45 a.m., threatening legal action against him unless he immediately agreed to return all physical or electronic copies of the report, and destroy copies and descriptions of it that had been published on his platforms. The attorney said he would bring a lawsuit against Geleff and his media companies, and had plans to present an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction, an order requiring Geleff to destroy and unpublish the report, to a judge at 1:30 p.m. that day.
Geleff told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he replied he would not comply with the request.
The judge granted the Township’s motion at 2 p.m., and within two hours Geleff had removed the podcast and the article with images of the report.
“I had no time to get legal representation and how a judge allowed that to happen I can’t understand,” Geleff said.
That evening, Geleff posted on the Examiner’s Facebook page a link to an external website that published photos of the report. Within 15 minutes, he was contacted by the Township’s attorney who alleged posting the link violated the order. Geleff promptly removed that post and mentions of the website from his podcast.
Two days later, Geleff published an article (available through a web archive) about the emergency order and the lawsuit against him, alleging that it was entirely retaliatory.
“This is nothing but retribution for a very vocal critic who has a media outlet and audience. They are attempting to silence any dissent of their plans. And they must be stopped,” Geleff wrote.
On Dec. 23, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a motion to dissolve the restraint on Geleff’s behalf. RCFP Local Legal Initiative Attorney Paula Knudsen Burke wrote that the prior restraint “flatly violates” the First Amendment and the state’s constitution.
That same day, the Township’s attorney filed a motion for Geleff to be held in contempt for the Facebook post linking to the external website, asking that the court fine Geleff and order him to pay the Township’s attorneys and court fees.
In its January 2023 filing of arguments against the lawsuit and the motion to hold Geleff in contempt, RCFP attorney Burke wrote that the Township was asking the court to further punish Geleff without cause.
“This behavior would be troubling from a private litigant. From the Township, a local government seeking to punish one of its residents for speech on a matter of public interest, it shocks the conscience,” Burke wrote.
On Jan. 10, the Township’s attorney withdrew the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be refiled at a later date. The preliminary injunction barring Geleff from publishing the report was also lifted.
Geleff republished his article and podcast episode that day, writing on the Examiner’s Facebook, “The cowardly Exeter Township Supervisors dropped their lawsuit against me, and I'm able to put this back up. The unconstitutional temporary injunction they were granted no longer applies.”
On its Facebook page, the Township acknowledged that portions of the report had continued to be shared online and that continuing the lawsuit would only incur additional expenses for the taxpayers.
A portion of the Dec. 15, 2022, order directing journalist Jerry Geleff to destroy all copies of a leaked report from Exeter Township, Pennsylvania, as well as all of his coverage of the report’s contents.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,dropped,False,None,"The Exeter Examiner, The Exeter Underground",,,, 2022-12-08 19:51:18.467824+00:00,2023-05-01 18:51:09.851491+00:00,‘Confidentiality order’ sent to California news outlet attempts to stop newsgathering,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/confidentiality-order-sent-to-california-news-outlet-attempts-to-stop-newsgathering/,2023-05-01 18:51:09.774738+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2022-11-16,False,Contra Costa,California (CA),None,None,"A California judge granted a motion on Nov. 16, 2022, seeking to prohibit reporters from contacting people who filed letters of support for a Contra Costa middle school teacher accused of sexual abuse.
East Bay Times reporter Rachel Heimann Mercader told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she and a colleague attended a bail hearing in October for the teacher, who was arrested the month before for sexual misconduct with a minor.
During the hearing, Public Defender Manisha Daryani submitted 16 letters of support from the teacher’s students, their parents and his family members.
Mercader said she received a copy of the public motion, which had the letters attached, from the clerk’s office after the hearing. “Each letter included the person’s name and email and phone number,” she said.
As Mercader began contacting the letter writers, she received a call from Daryani who accused her of attempting to influence witnesses and the outcome of the case. Both Mercader and an East Bay Times editor, also contacted by Daryani, refused the requests to stop contacting the supporters.
“To be clear, none of these letter writers are considered witnesses at this point, and all I am asking them is if they would like to speak with me about their letters,” Mercader said.
On Nov. 16, without a hearing or notice to the journalists, the California judge signed and entered the public defender’s motion requesting that “further unwanted contact by the press be ceased.”
The order, which included an instruction for the parties to “advise those individuals to whom disclosure of the contact information has been made,” was sent to the East Bay Times by Daryani.
#NEW: The lawyer for a cheerleading coach accused of child molestation has filed a motion for a protective order to keep the media from contacting his supporters, whose contact info we got from public records filed by the same attorney: pic.twitter.com/F3W8PzBeGB
— Nate Gartrell (@NateGartrell) November 16, 2022
Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote that what seems like an innocuous “confidentiality order” is effectively a prior restraint that attempts to restrict future speech.
“It is elementary that a court cannot tell non-parties what to do especially without notice or a hearing, but the apparent intention was to intimidate the press into compliance despite the order’s invalidity under the First Amendment,” Stern said.
FPF oversees the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Attorney Duffy Carolan, who represents the East Bay Times, told the Tracker the outlet did not believe the protective order applied to its reporters and would not alter their newsgathering practices.
“None were named in the order or even had notice of the motion or an opportunity to be heard on the matter,” Carolan said.
Public Defender Daryani did not respond to requests for comment from the Tracker.
A Florida judge granted an emergency injunction on June 10, 2022, barring the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and reporter Melissa Pérez-Carrillo from publishing the names of deputies involved in a fatal shooting in April, the outlet reported.
According to the Herald-Tribune, the State Attorney’s Office provided the outlet with the last names of the three deputies involved in a court-ordered eviction that resulted in the shooting death of a Sarasota resident as part of a routine public records request.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office argues that two of the deputies’ identities are confidential under Marsy’s Law, which provides certain protections to crime victims and was added to the Florida Constitution in 2018. Whether the law can be used to shield law enforcement officers in this way is at the center of a case being heard by the Florida Supreme Court stemming from a fatal police shooting in Tallahassee in May 2020.
Chief Circuit Judge Charles Roberts granted the request from the Sheriff’s Office and the 12th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday evening without notifying the Herald-Tribune, the outlet reported.
Attorneys for the Herald-Tribune filed an emergency motion to dissolve the injunction on June 13 on behalf of the newspaper Pérez-Carrillo. The motion, which was reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, contends that the order amounts to an unconstitutional prior restraint violating both the United States and Florida constitutions.
“It’s important for us to follow through on this action because we are committed to fulfilling our First Amendment right to responsibly report news about this case which is important and of public interest,” Jennifer Orsi, executive editor at the Herald-Tribune, told the Tracker. “We believe that once our arguments are heard, this injunction will be lifted.”
The law firm representing the Herald-Tribune told the Tracker that a hearing on the motion to dissolve has been scheduled for June 21 before Judge Charles Williams.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include comment from Sarasota Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Jennifer Orsi.
A portion of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s motion to lift an unconstitutional prior restraint against the newspaper and one of its reporters, which was put in place on June 10, 2022.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,None,Sarasota Herald-Tribune,public records,,, 2022-04-29 14:10:08.048915+00:00,2023-12-21 20:17:47.852648+00:00,Denver Gazette barred from publishing article based on mistakenly released documents,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/denver-gazette-barred-from-publishing-article-based-on-mistakenly-released-documents/,2023-12-21 20:17:47.761311+00:00,,,(2022-04-28 19:07:00+00:00) Judge lifts gag order on Denver Gazette article based on mistakenly released documents,Prior Restraint,,,,Julia Cardi (The Denver Gazette),,2022-04-25,False,Brighton,Colorado (CO),39.98526,-104.82053,"A judge issued an order on April 25, 2022, barring The Denver Gazette from publishing an article based on court documents that were mistakenly released to reporter Julia Cardi. The outlet’s attorney has filed a motion asking the judge to vacate the order, arguing that it is unconstitutional.
According to the newspaper’s motion, on April 14 Cardi requested a number of recent public filings in the cases of each of the police officers and paramedics charged in connection with the the death of Elijah McClain in August 2019. The clerk at the Adams County Courthouse provided her a stack of documents that included filings in the case of former Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard, which a judge had sealed from public access.
Cardi wrote on Twitter that she notified the Attorney General’s office on the morning of April 25 that the Gazette would be publishing an article based on the mistakenly disclosed records. By that afternoon, she wrote, she received the order barring them from moving forward with the piece and telling her to destroy any copies of the documents.
A few weeks ago I went to the clerk’s office in the Adams County courthouse and asked for recent public filings in the cases of each of the police officers and paramedics charged in connection with Elijah’s death, since a hearing was scheduled the next day.
— Julia Whitsett (@juliawhitsett23) April 27, 2022
“So now we fight for our right to publish information that is in the public’s interest to know,” Cardi wrote. “I have to admit the version of me at 9 a.m. on Monday had no idea what this situation would turn into. But all we can do now is put up the best fight we can.”
Neither Cardi nor the Gazette respond to requests for further comment.
District Court Judge Priscilla Loew, who issued the protective order, wrote that the disclosure of these materials to the public would threaten grand jury secrecy and the defendant’s right to a fair trial and impartial jury.
Gazette attorney Steven Zansberg filed a motion to lift the gag order on April 26, stating that Cardi obtained the documents lawfully and that barring the newspaper from publishing information of legitimate public concern violates its First Amendment rights.
Zansberg told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Loew ordered all parties to respond to the newspaper’s motion by April 28, and he said he expects a hearing to be set shortly.
“The judge’s order demanding the parties to file responses by noon [on April 28] said that the court agrees that this was a matter of utmost importance and needed to be resolved quickly,” Zansberg said. “It is a big deal, there’s nothing worse. And that’s what the Supreme Court says about prior restraints: They are the least tolerable and most objectionable form of censorship.”
Zansberg noted that the response from the former police officer in the matter, Woodyard, also asserted that the prior restraint was unconstitutional and should be lifted. The Tracker was unable to access that filing as of publication.
The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
A portion of the order barring The Denver Gazette from publishing information obtained from mistakenly released court documents related to the trial of a former police officer.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,True,[],,Black Lives Matter,,, 2021-11-19 17:39:08.503135+00:00,2022-08-11 13:55:50.522971+00:00,NY court issues prior restraint against The New York Times,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ny-court-issues-prior-restraint-against-the-new-york-times/,2022-08-11 13:55:50.450261+00:00,,,(2022-02-10 13:09:00+00:00) NY appeals court stays prior restraint against The New York Times,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2021-11-18,False,White Plains,New York (NY),41.03399,-73.76291,"A Westchester County Supreme Court judge issued an order on Nov. 18, 2021, barring The New York Times from soliciting, acquiring or further disseminating leaked internal documents from conservative group Project Veritas.
The prior restraint was issued as part of a pending libel suit Project Veritas filed against the Times in 2020, which accuses the newspaper of defaming the group in its reporting on a Project Veritas video that made unverified claims of voter fraud in Minnesota, the Times reported.
The judge’s order specifically references a Nov. 11, 2021 article about the Department of Justice’s investigation into the alleged theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley. The article also contained excerpts from memos prepared by a Project Veritas lawyer advising members of the group how to avoid breaking federal law while using questionable reporting methods.
In issuing the prior restraint, Justice Charles Wood ordered the Times to appear before the state’s Supreme Court on Nov. 23 to “show cause” — to explain or prove why the court shouldn’t grant Project Veritas’s motion for an order directing the newspaper to “remove all references to or descriptions of Plaintiff Project Veritas’s privileged attorney-client information” and “return and/or immediately delete all copies.” Until it does so, the order directs the newspaper to “cease further efforts to solicit or acquire” any materials prepared by the Project Veritas lawyer, effectively preventing the outlet from reporting on the group.
“This ruling is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the Times, wrote in a statement published by the outlet. “The Supreme Court made that clear in the Pentagon Papers case, a landmark ruling against prior restraint blocking the publication of newsworthy journalism. That principle clearly applies here. We are seeking an immediate review of this decision.”
In a statement published by The Washington Post, Elizabeth Locke, an attorney representing Project Veritas in its suit against the Times, denied that the order amounted to a prior restraint, citing the fact that some of the materials had already been published.
Press freedom advocacy groups quickly refuted the assertion that the order was not prior restraint. Advocacy Director Parker Higgins of Freedom of the Press Foundation, where the Tracker is housed, noted the order not only restricts the Times from publishing further and requests that what has been published be pulled from circulation, but also bars the newspaper from engaging in routine newsgathering activities.
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, also raised immediate concerns with the order.
“Prior restraints — which are orders not to publish — are among the most serious threats to press freedom,” Brown said in a statement. “The trial court should have never entered this order. If it doesn’t immediately vacate the prior restraint, an appellate court must step in and do so.”
A portion of the order granting a motion directing The New York Times to cease efforts to solicit, acquire or further disseminate leaked internal documents from conservative group Project Veritas.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,None,The New York Times,,,, 2020-07-14 12:46:48.659413+00:00,2024-02-29 19:36:00.480996+00:00,New York judge strikes down orders barring publication of book by Trump’s niece,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/new-york-judge-strikes-down-orders-barring-publication-of-book-by-trumps-niece/,2024-02-29 19:36:00.394211+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,Mary L. Trump,,2020-06-30,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"A New York Supreme Court judge granted temporary restraining orders on June 30, 2020, barring President Donald Trump’s niece and publisher Simon & Schuster, Inc. from moving forward with printing and distributing a tell-all book about the Trump family. Both orders were subsequently vacated.
The book — “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” and scheduled for release in July — details Mary L. Trump’s relationships with the president, family members and her father, Fred Trump Jr.
Judge Hal B. Greenwald granted the temporary restraining order at the request of President Trump’s younger brother Robert, who alleged that the book violates a non-disclosure agreement signed by members of the family as part of the settlement of Fred Trump Sr.’s estate following his death in 1999.
According to court filings, the agreement included a pledge not to indirectly or directly publish any memoir. Robert Trump asserted that her book may “contain material that could harm him” or members of the family “by divulging private or disparaging information about their relationship to the public.”
Attorneys for Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster filed appeals the same day, arguing that the order constituted a prior restraint on core political speech in violation of the First Amendment, Politico reported. The attorneys also noted the impropriety of granting an injunction without allowing the author and publisher to provide a legal briefing to the court.
Mary Trump’s attorney, Ted Boutrous Jr., said in a statement, “This book, which addresses matters of great public concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day.”
The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Association of American Publishers and PEN America submitted an amicus brief highlighting the unprecedented nature of the order and the unenforceability of such a non-disclosure agreement.
“There can be no doubt that the Book’s subject matter is of immense public interest,” RCFP’s Legal Director Katie Townsend wrote. “Simply put, whatever embarrassment [Robert Trump] speculates he or the President may experience from the publication or dissemination of a Book ‘divulging private or disparaging information’ to the public cannot remotely approach the type of extraordinary harm that could justify a prior restraint against either Defendant.” RCFP is a partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Judge Alan D. Scheinkman of the New York Supreme Court’s appellate division lifted the restraining order against Simon & Schuster the following day, July 1, leaving the one against Mary Trump in place. The Washington Post reported that the decision allows the publisher to proceed with the distribution of the book ahead of the planned release.
Scheinkman wrote, “Whatever legitimate public interest there may have been in the family disputes of a real estate developer and his relatives may be considerably heightened by that real estate developer now being President of the United States and a current candidate for reelection.”
Simon & Schuster said in a statement to The Associated Press that the ruling was a victory.
The book, it said, was of “great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.”
Robert Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, argued in a reply filed on July 7 that the book consists solely of Mary Trump’s “personal observations, not political commentary,” and is therefore not entitled to the same protections and scrutiny as other materials, like the Pentagon Papers.
Harder, who did not respond to an emailed request for comment, called for the judge to uphold restraining orders against both Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster, adding that at its core, the case is not about the First Amendment.
“The ‘prior restraint’ doctrine Defendants invoke applies to a completely different type of injunction against speech and has no application where a party has contracted away her right to speak in exchange for valid consideration,” he wrote.
Boutrous said in a statement to the Tracker that “Robert Trump’s brief defies the First Amendment, ignores basic contract law and fails completely to justify a prior restraint muzzling Mary Trump.”
Attorneys for Simon & Schuster did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
In a decision on July 13 — one day before the book was set to be published — Greenwald vacated the temporary restraining order against Mary Trump. In that order, he also denied Robert Trump’s requests for injunctions against both Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster.
“In the matter before this Court, Plaintiff [Robert Trump] has failed to meet his burden of demonstrating imminent, irreparable harm, to him,” Greenwald wrote. “There is no doubt that the Book is out in the public eye in significant quantities and has reached millions of people by the tremendous attention it has gained by the media.”
“In the vernacular of First year law students, ‘Con[stitutional] law trumps Contracts.’”
A portion of the initial order granting a temporary restraining orders against Mary L. Trump and Simon & Schuster on June 30, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,[],"Simon & Schuster, Inc.",,,, 2020-04-02 19:18:27.478744+00:00,2023-12-21 20:18:34.722695+00:00,Appellate judge rules California blog can publish — but not destroy — city records,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/appellate-judge-rules-california-blog-can-publish-but-not-destroy-city-records/,2023-12-21 20:18:34.614157+00:00,,,(2021-05-12 14:38:00+00:00) City drops lawsuit against bloggers it accused of hacking documents,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2020-03-12,False,Fullerton,California (CA),33.87029,-117.92534,"The city of Fullerton, California, can pursue its lawsuit against local blog Friends for Fullerton’s Future and two of its reporters, a judge ruled on March 12, 2020. Superior Court Judge James Crandall also granted the city’s motion for a preliminary injunction to bar the blog from publishing, sharing or destroying a number of city documents.
Two weeks later, on March 26, an appellate judge stayed, or paused, portions of the prior restraint, allowing the blog to publish but not destroy records.
The city alleges that the blog FFFF and journalists Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee violated state and federal anti-hacking laws by illegally accessing and downloading city files uploaded to Dropbox, a file hosting and sharing service.
Both Ferguson and Curlee told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that they had been provided a link to the city’s Dropbox account in response to their previous public records requests. The folder was not password protected, and anyone could access it via the web address in the link.
A previous temporary restraining order was rendered moot when this injunction was granted.
In his ruling, Crandall also denied FFFF’s motion to dismiss the suit under California’s anti-SLAPP provision, which permits courts to dismiss lawsuits that are intended to censor public speech.
Kelly Aviles, attorney for FFFF, told the Tracker they have already filed an appeal of the judge’s decision.
“The court’s denial of the anti-SLAPP motion is a big problem because it’s the only opportunity for the client to get the money that they had to expend in this case in terms of trying to get their costs back,” Aviles said. She noted that responding to dozens of declarations and briefs have driven up FFFF’s attorneys fees and costs.
Kimberly Hall Barlow, attorney for the City of Fullerton, told the Tracker, “The city’s goal here is not to be punitive, it is to retrieve files containing confidential documents that were stolen from the Dropbox account.”
“We’re under an obligation to protect the privacy interests of the numerous individuals whose private information is included in those documents,” she said. “This is not about trying to suppress the press.”
The city also filed three deposition orders for testimony and documents from FFFF, Ferguson and Curlee, all captured in the Tracker’s subpoena category. Aviles said they were all filed after she had filed their appeal and are therefore invalid.
Hall Barlow told the Tracker the orders were filed properly and that they will continue to pursue the depositions as part of the discovery process.
Fourth Appellate District Judge Raymond Ikola, who granted the stay on the preliminary injunction on March 26, granted a writ of supersedeas on April 2, which lifts the restraint on publishing throughout the appellate hearings.
Curlee told the Tracker that he is hopeful that the appellate court will understand the conditions of the case more clearly.
“My hope is that they understand this better and realize that no crime occurred, no theft occurred,” he said. “We’re hopeful that the appeals court will see this for what it is and not by the city’s argument about it.”
Aviles said that she hopes all filings on their appeals will be completed in the next two to three months.
A portion of the ruling prohibiting the blog Friends for Fullerton's Future from publishing records and denying its request to dismiss a suit from the city of Fullerton. The restraint was later lifted.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,True,[],Friends for Fullerton’s Future,,,, 2019-11-20 17:53:49.813370+00:00,2024-02-27 20:59:26.825382+00:00,NC judge grants then dissolves restraining order barring TV station from airing investigative report,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nc-judge-grants-then-dissolves-restraining-order-barring-tv-station-airing-investigative-report/,2024-02-27 20:59:26.741809+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,David Hodges (WBTV),,2019-11-13,False,Charlotte,North Carolina (NC),35.22709,-80.84313,"A North Carolina judge granted a temporary restraining order on Nov. 13, 2019, barring David Hodges, a reporter at WBTV, from airing his investigation into a Charlotte-based towing company.
The order was lifted at a hearing the following day, and Hodges’ story — about an Army National Guard soldier whose car was towed and sold while she was deployed — aired as planned that evening.
In the motion for the temporary restraining order filed with the court, the lawyer for the towing company, SL Recovery LLC, argued that Hodges’ story was false. “Hodges has not produced any evidence to substantiate his claims that Plaintiff has engaged in predatory towing practices, and thus far, Defendant Gray Television, Inc., has refused to pull the story which will air on November 14 if temporary and/or permanent injunctive relief is not granted to Plaintiff,” attorney Cedric Rainey wrote in his motion.
Previews of the story had already ran on WBTV, and as a result of those previews, Rainey’s motion alleges, SL Recovery had received a death threat. “The person making the threats specifically stated he would cause harm to Plaintiff if the targeting of veterans continued,” Rainey wrote.
Mecklenburg County Judge Lisa Bell granted the temporary restraining order on the evening of Nov. 13, a day before the story was slated to run.
The next day, Jonathan Buchan, the lawyer representing WBTV and Hodges, filed a motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order, arguing that it amounted to “an impermissible prior restraint on speech which violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 14 of the Constitution of North Carolina.”
Buchan continued, “If this form of prior restraint were permissible under the First Amendment, then every subject of a planned news story could prohibit its publication for indefinite periods and litigate the truth or falsity of the unpublished article prior to its publication. It would essentially require, in Alice and Wonderland fashion, a ‘libel trial’ prior to the publication of an article. Such a process would eviscerate the First Amendment’s prohibition of prior restraints on publication.”
Buchan made these arguments at a hearing before Judge Bell on the afternoon of Nov. 14. “You don’t keep the news media in this country from publishing truthful—or what they believe to be truthful—information in this country,” Buchan told the court, according to WBTV.
Rainey, the attorney for SL Recovery, told the judge that this was not a case of prior restraint. “There hasn’t been a prior restraint at any level,” he said in court. If the restraining order were lifted, Rainey continued, “The court would be tacitly permitting them to make ongoing libelous statements.”
Buchan countered at the hearing that the law affords injured parties the opportunity to file a lawsuit for defamation, should that occur, but restraining speech by blocking publication would set a dangerous precedent. “That’s not how the First Amendment was designed to work or has ever worked,” Buchan said. “When he says this is not a prior restraint, this is the definition of a prior restraint.”
Bell granted Buchan’s motion to dissolve the restraining order. “I conclude that the court was in error in granting a temporary restraining order,” Bell said as she announced her ruling.
“At the time she signed the restraining order, Bell said, she thought the potential significant harm to SL Recovery outweighed the potential harm to WBTV by having to hold its story,” WBTV reported.
“At that point alone, I stand corrected,” Bell said.
In a statement emailed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Hodges said the experience was a shocking one. “It paralyzed me, but only for a minute before the news team at WBTV went to work defending the first amendment to make sure our story would air on-time,” he wrote. “Time and money are in short supply for any newsroom and are better spent reporting for our community than fighting legal battles already decided by the Supreme Court.”
A portion of the motion to disolve the temporary restraining order placed on WBTV’s report
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,[],,,,, 2019-12-23 18:12:26.960064+00:00,2024-02-27 20:35:54.885210+00:00,California journalists sued for ‘hacking’ city’s open Dropbox folder; barred from publishing,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/california-journalists-sued-for-hacking-citys-open-dropbox-folder-barred-from-publishing/,2024-02-27 20:35:54.795416+00:00,,,"(2020-03-12 11:30:00+00:00) Judge denies motion to dismiss under anti-SLAPP law, (2021-05-12 13:59:00+00:00) City drops lawsuit against bloggers it accused of hacking documents",Prior Restraint,,,,,,2019-10-24,False,Fullerton,California (CA),33.87029,-117.92534,"In a complaint filed in the California Superior Court of Orange County on Oct. 24, 2019, the City of Fullerton, California, accused a community blog and two contributors of violating anti-hacking laws for accessing confidential files city employees posted online, according to their lawyer Kelly Aviles and court documents reviewed by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Aviles told CPJ in December that the suit could go to a jury trial in early 2020. The press freedom and legal advocacy group Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called the case the “first … we’re aware of where the computer crime laws have been misused so brazenly against members of the news media.”
The City of Fullerton claims that the blog, Friends for Fullerton’s Future, and two of its journalists, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, accessed more than a dozen internal documents stored on the file hosting and sharing service Dropbox without permission, according to CPJ’s review. The blog publishes original articles and commentary on the city government and the local police department.
Aviles alleged, in a phone interview with CPJ, that the case is designed to retaliate against her clients for reporting and to block future publication. She told CPJ she has filed an anti-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation motion, or SLAPP, which permits courts to dismiss lawsuits that are intended to censor public speech.
“The City’s suit was not in retaliation for anything,” Fullerton’s lawyer Kimberly Hall Barlow wrote in an email to CPJ. The blog was not a factor in the decision to bring the case, she said.
“If the argument is that a reporter can steal information him or herself and then be allowed to publish it at will, that is neither consistent with the first amendment law nor the ethical tenets of professional journalists,” she said.
Ferguson routinely requested public records, and the city had provided him with a link to the Dropbox folder in the past, he told CPJ. The city acknowledges sending a link to access the folder in response to records requests, according to court filings reviewed by CPJ. The folder was not password protected, and anyone could access it via the web address in the link. Files that were approved for public release were kept in the same folder as others that had not been, some of which were password protected, according to those documents.
The complaint said Ferguson and Curlee accessed files in the folder that had not been approved for release, thereby violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal law intended to combat hacking, and a similar state law, the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. CPJ has reported concerns that the CFAA’s broad wording could be used to punish routine online journalistic activity.
The complaint said the journalists had intentionally obscured their activity using a virtual private network and the Tor browser — digital security tools that CPJ and others routinely recommend that journalists use online. The City also requested a forensic analysis of the reporters’ computers and sought prior restraint to block future publication based on the files — a request that RCFP called “concerning” and Aviles called unconstitutional in court documents.
In November, a trial court in Orange County did not allow that forensic examination, according to Aviles, while an appeals court stayed the attempt to block future publication in December. But the anti-hacking lawsuit against the blog is ongoing, Aviles told CPJ.
“The city is calling me a hacker and a thief,” Ferguson told CPJ in December. Yet, he said, “the idea they are presenting — that hacking is just clicking a link — that idea would literally break the internet if broadly applied.”
“The conduct that the City complains of is no more criminal than clicking through the City’s website, finding confidential information, and downloading it,” Aviles wrote in court filings reviewed by CPJ. The city’s lawsuit is in “retaliation for Mr. Ferguson’s CPRA lawsuit and to silence the Blog,” she wrote. Immediately before the city launched its lawsuit, Ferguson had filed a California Public Records Act lawsuit requesting the release of documents related to alleged police misconduct, he told CPJ.
Kimberly Hall Barlow told CPJ that the city decided to file their suit before Ferguson filed his.
Ferguson told CPJ that the city’s complaint included Christopher Tennyson, his former co-worker at a local camera store where they sometimes shared the same computer, in order to damage Ferguson’s professional relationships. Kimberly Hall Barlow denied this, noting to CPJ that the city later dropped Tennyson from the suit.
Aviles said the case was draining her clients’ financial resources and impeding their ability to continue reporting.
“It would be hard for a large newspaper to deal with this,” Aviles told CPJ in November. “But for a blog of concerned citizen journalists — who felt like there was no voice in their community — it’s an outrageous thing to face.”
RCFP filed an amicus brief in support of the bloggers, as did the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading U.S. digital rights group. The editorial board of the local Orange County Register newspaper published an editorial in November asking the city to drop the case and “get some professional advice on how to password-protect its files.”
A Pittsburgh-based reporter was ordered on May 30, 2019, not to publish details of a sealed settlement that he was mistakenly able to access. At a hearing on June 4, the order was vacated by Washington County Common Pleas President Judge Katherine Emery.
Range Resources Appalachia LLC had reached a settlement in August 2018 with families who alleged they had experienced serious health problems due to exposure to leaks, spills and air pollution emanating from a nearby Range well.
The settlement was sealed, only coming to the attention of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in January while reporting on a related story. Upon learning of the confidential settlement, the Post-Gazette filed a court action seeking to unseal it.
A hearing on the newspaper’s petition to intervene was scheduled for May 28, Post-Gazette reporter Don Hopey told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “[Judge Emery] deferred ruling,” he said, “instead taking the case under advisement.”
Reid Frazier, a reporter for The Allegheny Front, StateImpact Pennsylvania and WESA 90.5, was in Washington, Pennsylvania, that day to cover the hearing. Hopey told the Tracker that in the course of conducting background research on the case, Frazier discovered the sealed settlement in the Washington County Prothonotary’s Public Case File Database.
County prothonotary Joy Ranko later told the Washington Observer-Reporter that the document was available due to a software glitch.
When Range lawyers became aware that Frazier had obtained the settlement and planned to air a story about it on May 30, they sent him a cease-and-desist letter and alerted the judge, the StateImpact reported. Emery issued an injunction barring Frazier, The Allegheny Front or StateImpact from “directly or indirectly publishing, circulating, disseminating, disclosing, describing, duplicating, or otherwise sharing in any way contents of the Sealed Documents.”
Frazier reported that at the June 4 hearing for the injunction, Range did not ask for a continuation of the order and told Emery it would publicly release the settlement terms. Emery vacated the injunction order.
Range Resources attorneys announced in court today that they will release terms of the Haney-Range settlement. Said they were seeking "peace".
— Reid Frazier (@reidfrazier) June 4, 2019
In the course of the Post-Gazette petitioning to unseal the settlement, Range lawyers also attempted to subpoena and depose two reporters and an editor at the newspaper. In early May, Emery denied Range’s attempt to uncover sources and view confidential notes and documents, citing the state’s shield law.
Reporter Reid Frazier was ordered to not publish the contents of this settlement agreement, which had been sealed but mistakenly made public.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,True,[],StateImpact Pennsylvania,environmentalism,,, 2019-03-27 17:42:06.855461+00:00,2024-01-11 18:01:47.005478+00:00,"Judge orders ProPublica Illinois, other media, not to publish details of juvenile court case",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/judge-orders-propublica-illinois-other-media-not-publish-details-juvenile-court-case/,2024-01-11 18:01:46.921049+00:00,,,(2019-04-15 13:33:00+00:00) Judge lifts some restrictions on publishing ban,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2019-03-14,False,Chicago,Illinois (IL),41.85003,-87.65005,"On March 14, 2019, a Cook County Juvenile Court judge ordered ProPublica Illinois and other news organizations not to publish certain details about an ongoing child welfare case in the Chicago-based juvenile court.
In the course of reporting on child welfare issues, a ProPublica Illinois reporter had learned about the case. On March 7, after the reporter tried to attend a hearing in the case, the hearing was closed to the public and press.
Bruce Boyer — a Loyola University law professor whose legal clinic represents the foster children in the case — then requested that the court issue an order prohibiting news outlets from publishing details about the case. On March 14, Patricia Martin, the presiding judge of the juvenile court’s child protection division, granted the request and issued a prior restraint order.
Documents related to the juvenile court case, including Martin’s prior restraint order, have not been made public. But on March 19, ProPublica Illinois reported on the existence of the prior restraint order, describing it as an order “forbidding news organizations from publishing the names, addresses or any demographic information that would identify the children or the foster parents in a case ProPublica Illinois has been investigating.”
ProPublica Illinois was not initially a party to the case, but it asked the court to intervene in order to oppose the prior restraint order. On March 19, the court granted ProPublica Illinois’ motion to intervene, and on March 22, the news organization filed its opposition to the prior restraint order. A court hearing on the prior restraint order is now scheduled for April 5.
Prior restraint orders are relatively unusual and should not be confused with sealing orders, which are far more commonly employed by courts. A sealing order is used when a court needs to allow attorneys and parties to a case access to sensitive information; the sealing order just prohibits the attorneys and parties from turning around and disclosing that information to the public. A prior restraint order is much more serious, since it prohibits a third party with no connection to the case (often a news organization) from publishing information that they learned on their own.
ProPublica Illinois is opposing Martin’s prior restraint order because it sees it as an unconstitutional attempt by the government to interfere in its editorial process.
“The Supreme Court has made it very clear that courts are not supposed to be editors,” ProPublica President Richard Tofel told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “One of the Constitution’s guarantees is that editors should be editors.”
Tofel is correct that legal precedent is on ProPublica Illinois’ side. In 1971, the Supreme Court famously ruled that the government’s attempts to prevent The New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing a classified history of the Vietnam War violated the news organizations’ First Amendment rights. This “Pentagon Papers” case established the precedent that, except in extreme circumstances, prior restraints on the press are unconstitutional.
A Cook County judge ordered the the Better Government Association, an Illinois investigative government watchdog, not to publish records released by Chicago Public School lawyers during a lawsuit brought by the BGA. BGA detailed the context of this order in an article published on Feb. 7, 2019.
The article reported that a CPS lawyer supplied BGA with requested investigative files and internal records on Jan. 24. Four days later, the school’s lawyers asked for their return and the destruction of any copies that had been made, claiming that their release had been a mistake.
The lawsuit and files pertained to a 2017 BGA and Chicago Sun-Times investigation which revealed that a 14-year-old boy with autism was permitted to enter a school pool with neither direct supervision nor a life vest. They reported that the boy drowned within minutes.
When BGA refused to return the released files, CPS attorney Mara Warman asked Circuit Court Judge Peter Flynn during a hearing on Feb. 4 to “claw back” the records. Flynn ruled in their favor, ordering that BGA delay publishing the records until at least Feb. 20. Following an emergency request from BGA to vacate that order, Flynn reaffirmed his ruling on Feb 6.
“Just hold your horses,” Flynn said during the second hearing, BGA reported. “There is no emergency here in any meaningful way… I don’t think it’s a prior restraint. I think it’s efficient management of a case.”
BGA attorney Matt Topic disagreed. “You have the press, which has a highly relevant, important document that they obtained through nothing illegal and you are restraining them from publishing that document where they have an ethical and professional obligation,” Topic said.
Bob Secter, senior editor for BGA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Topic reached out to the deceased child’s parents to have them sign a paper authorizing the release of the materials. Based on that release, Flynn vacated his order to delay publication. Some of the documents did have the names of child witnesses to the incident redacted, as well as their social security numbers and other private information.
BGA published an article on Feb. 8 about the judge vacating the original order and what was in the documents.
“This started as a simple FOIA case,” Secter told the Tracker about BGA’s use of the Freedom of Information Act. “We wrote a story with the Chicago Sun-Times reconstructing that incident and how it came about and who might have been responsible and who made mistakes. As part of the reporting on that, we issued a FOIA… As the Chicago Public School does, they basically blanket deny everything, so we filed a lawsuit, and they fought us for well over a year.”
The child’s parents had also sued CPS for wrongful death, reaching a $4 million settlement which was approved by the Illinois Board of Education the day before the documents requested in the FOIA were released to BGA.
“[The prior restraint] was entirely out of the ordinary. Outside of national security cases this doesn’t happen, and, not to minimize what we did, but it was an everyday case about a tragic accident and the subsequent legal case,” Secter said.
U.S. Supreme Court precedent has held that prior restraint—in which government officials seek to block information from becoming public—is unconstitutional in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Details around the Chicago public school pool drowning death of 14-year-old Rosario Israel Gomez were at the heart of documents sought by the Better Government Association and the Chicago Sun-Times.
A federal judge reportedly ordered the Chicago Sun-Times not to publish the details of a court document, which the newsroom downloaded when it was mistakenly made public. The Sun-Times used this information in a story published on Jan. 29, 2019.
The Sun-Times article revealed that the FBI had secretly recorded Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan pitching the use of his own private law firm’s services to a developer, in a questionable practice of merging personal and political business. The meeting was arranged by Alderman Danny Solis, who chairs the Chicago City Council Zoning Committee.
The story cites a federal court affidavit: “The details of the allegations against Solis are contained in a 2016 search warrant application filed by federal prosecutors seeking to search Solis’ City Hall office, campaign and ward office, homes and a North Side massage parlor where Solis allegedly received free sex acts.”
A week after the Sun-Times article, the business news site Chicago Business published a story behind the story. Citing anonymous sources, Chicago Business outlines how the affidavit was filed as part of an FBI request for a search warrant on Solis, a request that should have been sealed. Instead, it was mistakenly posted on PACER, a site through which the public can access federal court records. While it was temporarily available, the Sun-Times seemingly downloaded the document after it was published on PACER.
Chicago Business reports that Magistrate Judge Young Kim ordered the Sun-Times not to publish the details of the document, “presumably on grounds that premature publicity could undermine what appears to be an extremely wide-ranging federal probe into City Hall that has been underway for four years or longer.”
The Sun-Times reportedly defied this court order, and published the information contained in the document anyway. The Sun-Times declined to comment on the Chicago Business report.
Chicago Business added that “whether [Magistrate Judge] Kim will take further action” in response to the Sun-Times publishing the details of the affidavit is not known.
Courts have generally found cases of prior restraint — in which government officials seek to block information from becoming public — to be unconstitutional.
The secret recording of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, here in a 2017 file photo, was included in an unsealed court document — the details of which the Chicago Sun-Times was ordered not to publish.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,ignored,True,[],Chicago Sun-Times,,,, 2019-03-01 16:16:54.140541+00:00,2023-12-21 20:20:17.175553+00:00,Colorado judge strikes down order preventing CBS4 from publishing,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/colorado-judge-strikes-down-order-preventing-cbs4-publishing/,2023-12-21 20:20:17.081997+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,,,,,,2019-01-23,False,Denver,Colorado (CO),39.73915,-104.9847,"A Jefferson County, Colorado, sheriff and county attorney obtained an order prohibiting local CBS station, CBS4, from publishing a story on the grounds that an affidavit used in the report should not have been released.
A Jefferson County District Court Judge struck the order down on Jan. 27, 2019, finding it an unconstitutional case of prior restraint.
According to its own report, CBS4 requested a court file in the case of a sheriff’s deputy that had been charged for an alleged relationship with an inmate at a local jail. On Jan. 22, it received both the file and a copy of an affidavit.
The affidavit, according to the report, outlines how Myriah Lovato, a deputy working in the jail as part of the gang unit, had struck up a relationship an inmate, a “known gang member.”
On Jan. 23, a Jefferson county sheriff and the county attorney obtained a signed order from a judge that the affidavit had been disclosed inadvertently and should have been sealed.
“The Sheriff is deeply concerned that the release of this information, as well as additional details contained in the affidavit but not yet released by CBS, will compromise related criminal investigations throughout the State of Colorado, the prosecution of Lovato’s case, and the safety of individuals involved in these investigations,” reads the order.
The newsroom initially complied with the order and removed the report while CBS attorneys fought to challenge it. It re-published following the judge’s order to vacate.
U.S. Supreme Court precedent has held that prior restraint — in which government officials seek to block information from becoming public — is unconstitutional in all but the most extreme circumstances.
On Jan. 11, 2019, journalist Davin Eldridge was found guilty of criminal contempt; sentenced to a year-long probation; and required to write an essay about respect for the court, submit it for court approval, publish it online and censor negative comments.
Eldridge, publisher of the news site and Facebook page Trappalachia, recorded and livestreamed a criminal proceeding in the Macon County Courthouse in Franklin, North Carolina, in November 2018 despite posted signs stating that recording was not permitted in the courtroom and a warning from a bailiff, the News & Observer reported.
The presiding judge, William Coward, reiterated his rule against recording and, after viewing Eldridge’s Facebook posts, ordered the journalist to return to the courtroom later that day. Eldridge did not comply with that order.
Eldridge did not respond to requests for comment.
Eldridge was later charged with criminal contempt by Coward, who ordered the journalist to appear for a hearing on Jan. 11, 2019. That day, Eldridge objected to Coward overseeing his case and asked for his recusal, which Coward denied.
Coward found Eldridge guilty of criminal contempt and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. The sentence was suspended, and the trial court placed Eldridge on probation for one year with certain conditions, which included writing a 2,000-to-3,000-word essay on the subject “Respect for the Court System is Essential to the Fair Administration of Justice” and not attending “any court session in Judicial District 30A unless and until his essay has been approved and posted.”
Eldridge immediately appealed the ruling, but in December 2019, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision. A dissenting opinion was entered by Judge Christopher Brook, who agreed that Coward had the right to restrict recording in the courtroom and find Eldridge guilty of contempt but found that the conditions of his probation had “deeply troubling constitutional problems.”
“Although we generally do not review constitutional questions that have not first been raised in the trial court … suffice it to say that the sentencing judge has not only compelled Defendant [Eldridge] to speak within the meaning of the First Amendment, he has compelled Defendant to then continue speaking by censoring the viewpoints of other expressed in response to speech compelled by the court,” Judge Brook wrote in his dissent. “This compelled speech silencing third-party viewpoints expressed in response to compelled speech raises serious First Amendment concerns.”
On March 12, 2021, the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the Appeals Court’s decision without any explanation.
On Oct. 17, 2018, Orange County Superior Court judge Gregory Jones ordered members of the media not to report on a sealed search warrant that had previously been made available to the public—an unconstitutional prior restraint. Four days later, he rescinded the order and unsealed the search warrant materials.
The search warrant was executed in January 2018 against Grant Robicheaux, a prominent surgeon suspected of sexually assaulting multiple women. Like most search warrants in California, it was initially filed under seal but was automatically unsealed and made available to the public shortly after it was carried out.
Eight months later, in September 2018, police arrested Robicheaux and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, and the Orange County district attorney Tony Rackauckas charged them with sexually assaulting two women. After the arrests were announced, a number of journalists found the January search warrant materials (which were now available to the public) and reported on their contents. In response, both prosecutors and Robicheaux’s defense team asked a judge to re-seal the search warrant materials, which he did.
The next month, as The Associated Press reported, Rackauckas announced that five more women had accused Robicheaux and Riley of sexual assault. At a court hearing on Oct. 17, Rackauckas’ office formally filed additional charges against Robicheaux and Riley, who pleaded not guilty.
According to the OC Register, outside the hearing, Orange County supervisor Todd Spitzer — who is challenging Rackauckas in the election for Orange County district attorney — held a press conference to criticize Rackauckas for taking so long to arrest Robicheaux and Riley. Speaking to a group of reporters, Spitzer said Rackauckas should have had Robicheaux and Riley arrested back in January 2018, right after the search warrant was executed. To prove his point, Spitzer and his assistant handed out copies of the January 2018 search warrant materials to reporters.
Rackauckas objected to Spitzer’s stunt, since the search warrant materials were supposed to be sealed from the public, and the district attorney’s office asked judge Jones do something about it. (Jones was not the judge who originally ordered the search warrant sealed, but he was the judge presiding over the hearing.)
Jones called reporters back into the courtroom and told them to return the copies of the search warrants that they had received. He then told them to remind their news organizations that the search warrant was sealed and they should not publish it.
The Orange County Register and the AP challenged Jones’ order, arguing that it amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint on the press. On Oct. 21, Jones unsealed the search warrant, finding that it could not be re-sealed once it had already been made available to the public.
On Oct. 10, 2018, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gustavo N. Sztraicher ordered The Los Angeles Times not to publish “descriptors” of a defendant charged with murder — even though journalists watched his proceedings in an open courtroom.
According to The Times, an attorney for Dejone Wright, the defendant charged with the July shooting of anti-gang activist Garry Dorton, objected during a pre-trial hearing to a media request issued by The Times to photograph or describe his client to the public. Wright’s attorney argued that any information about his client’s appearance, if published, “would affect the outcome of a jury trial."
Court documents state Sztraicher agreed with the lawyer’s request and ordered “no descriptors” of Wright be published, citing an “identification issue.”
A sworn declaration by Times reporter Cindy Chang, who was present for the hearing, states no further elaboration of the order was given and that the order was not mentioned in the hearing’s official minutes.
“My understanding is that the Court has prohibited me from publishing any information that visually describes Mr. Wright or Mr. Dixon that I obtained from observing them in open court,” Chang wrote. “However, given the brief exchange in court on Oct. 10 and the lack of any reference to it in the Minute Order, I am uncertain and confused about what the ruling requires.”
On Oct. 12, Dan Laidman, an attorney for The Times, challenged the order, requesting clarification and that the order be vacated as an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech.
“The Times respectfully requests that this Court clarify the scope of the Order, particularly whether it restricts the publication of any information,” Laidman wrote. “If the Order prohibits The Times from publishing information about Defendants that is obtained through a journalist’s observations in open court (or any lawful source), then it is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”
Laidman also challenged the order on the grounds it was unconstitutionally vague.
“Without further clarification from this Court, the media will be required to steer wide of describing Defendants, who were lawfully observed in open court, and the Oct. 10 Order therefore imposes an unconstitutionally vague prior restraint,” he argued.
Laidman went on to note that Wright’s name and birthdate were released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Oct. 3, and no California court has ever upheld a prior restraint “on publication of lawfully obtained information about criminal court proceedings.”
Sztraicher reversed his ruling on Oct. 12 after acknowledging even he did not fully comprehend the scope of order, according to The Times.
“Any observations made by a reporter who is lawfully in court… may be reported and disseminated,” Sztraicher said in his reversal.
In September, Sztraicher also prohibited reporters from The Times and other outlets from publishing information in a criminal court proceeding over an “identification issue.” That ruling was also reversed.
On Oct. 16 The Times Editorial Board responded to the ruling and its reversal:
It is a settled principle of 1st Amendment law that judges can't bar journalists (or anyone else) from reporting what they see and hear in open court. So it's astounding that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered The Times not to publish information as basic as the physical description of a criminal defendant who was appearing in his courtroom.
A few weeks earlier, the same judge granted permission to photograph another defendant — but then tried to block The Times from publishing the photos. Both gag orders were impermissible and deeply disturbing prior restraints on speech.
Judge Gustavo N. Sztraicher reversed himself in both cases after The Times objected, so one might be tempted to conclude, "No harm, no foul."
But there is indeed serious harm every time a judge disregards or misunderstands the 1st Amendment and the strict limitation it places on the government’s power to prevent a person or news outlet from repeating or reporting what goes on in open court.
Editorial: Note to Judge Sztraicher: ‘Open court’ means open for journalists to report freely
Editor's Note: This article was updated to reflect the correct spelling of Times reporter Cindy Chang's name.
On Sept. 26, 2018, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gustavo N. Sztraicher ordered journalists not to publish images taken during the arraignment hearing of Ramon Escobar, who was charged with the murders of multiple homeless people in Southern California.
According to court documents, Sztraicher gave permission to journalists from The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and a television news station to document the proceedings after hearing no objections. However, once reporters began taking photographs, an attorney for Escobar raised an objection, citing an “identification issue.”
Although photographs of Escobar had already been released and published by media outlets, the objection was sustained by Sztraicher, who then ordered reporters to stop taking photos and video. He also ordered a sketch artist to stop drawing.
Dan Laidman, an attorney representing The Times and the AP, provided documents that show the journalists were unsure if the court had simply halted further photography or had prohibited publishing images already taken. Journalists, including Times reporters Gina Ferazzi and James Queally, asked the judge for further instruction.
“When journalists pressed for clarification, the judge ruled that the publication of any images, videos or sketches of Escobar from the court hearing would be considered a violation of a court order,” The Times reported.
At a hearing the following day, Laidman argued the order was “flatly unconstitutional” and asked that it be vacated, noting the Supreme Court has never upheld a prior restraint.
“The Times understands that this Court issued its prior restraint because of concerns about an unspecified ‘identification’ issue concerning Defendant, and out of concern for his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. But these interests simply do not justify a prior restraint here,” Laidman wrote in the court brief. “The September 26 Order is at odds with the basic purpose of the First Amendment - namely, to prevent the government from imposing prior restraints against the press. […] The Times, therefore, respectfully requests that the Court vacate the Order immediately.”
Escobar’s attorney argued that because Sztraicher’s permission was granted verbally and not through written order, the photographs were obtained unlawfully.
Sztraicher denied this argument, acknowledging journalists had obtained prior verbal approval, and vacated his order.
“Defense attorneys often argue that publishing their client’s image before trial could improperly sway witnesses, … Once photographs have been taken legally, however, a judgeccccccjfk typically can’t bar news outlets from publishing them,” The Times reported following the hearing.
The AP also published on the successful free speech defense.
“The order should never have been issued in the first place,” David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, told the AP. “I’m glad the court saw the light of day.”
In a statement emailed to the Freedom of the Press Foundation about the decision, The Times’ Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine noted how the judge’s courtroom ruling put the news outlet in a difficult position.
“It is distressing that once again the Los Angeles Times needs to resort to litigation to preserve our rights under the 1st Amendment,” Pearlstine said.
Earlier in the year, The Times filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals to rescind a restraining order against publishing information made public in the criminal case of former narcotics detective John Balian. That order was also reversed after a day.
The Ex Parte application to vacate prior restraint
On July 14, 2018, a federal judge in California ordered the Los Angeles Times to remove certain information from an article that the paper had published about a corrupt police officer accepting a plea deal. The newspaper had published details of the plea deal after a document spelling out the deal was inadvertently made publicly available, rather than being filed under seal.
On the morning of July 14, the Times reported that John Balian, a narcotics detective accused of working with the Mexican Mafia, had accepted a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The article was based on a copy of the sealed plea agreement — which had been inadvertently made available to the public through the online court records database PACER — and included specific details included in the plea agreement:
According to the plea agreement, Balian accepted $2,000 to help locate someone believed to have broken into his associate’s office and stolen $100,000 worth of property.
In March 2017, the agreement said, Balian gave information to the U.S. Marshals Services stationed at the Glendale Police Department, causing law enforcement resources to be used in an attempt to find the alleged thief.
In June 2015, Balian overheard Glendale police officers discussing a plan to search and arrest about 22 people in a federal racketeering case targeting the Frogtown gang, which is loyal to the Mexican Mafia, the agreement said.
Balian then tipped off his associates within the Mexican Mafia, saying authorities planned to arrest Jorge Grey, a Frogtown “shotcaller” who was a top target.
Archived version of "Glendale detective pleads guilty to obstruction, lying to feds about ties to organized crime" (Los Angeles Times)
Shortly after the article was published, Balian's attorney filed an emergency motion, asking the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to issue a temporary restraining order to prohibit the Times from publishing details from the plea agreement. District court judge John Walter, the federal judge overseeing Balian's criminal case, quickly granted the temporary restraining order. Judge Walter's order also directed the Times to remove any articles about the plea agreement that it had already published.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Los Angeles Times and each of its parent companies, subsidiaries, or affiliates (collectively “the Los Angeles Times”), directly or indirectly, whether alone or in concert with others, including any officer, agent, employee, or representative of the Los Angeles Times, be and hereby are enjoined from:
Disclosing the under seal plea agreement in this case, in whole or in part, or publishing any article, piece, post, or other document whether in print or electronic format that quotes, describes, summarizes, references, relies on, or is derived in any way from the under seal plea agreement in this case and that it return forthwith any and all copies of such plea agreement in its possession to the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
...
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that defendant shall serve the Los Angeles Times with a copy of this order but not the Ex Parte Application forthwith. To the extent any article is published prior to the issuance of this order, it shall be deleted and removed forthwith.
Temporary Restraining Order issued on July 14, 2018
At 5:15 p.m. on July 14, the Times edited its earlier article to remove certain details about the plea deal, and added a note to the bottom of the story: "This story has been updated to remove references from the filed plea agreement, which was ordered sealed by a judge but publicly available Friday on the federal court’s online document database. The changes were made to comply with an order issued Saturday by a U.S. federal judge. The Times plans to challenge the order."
Times publisher Norm Pearlstine defended the Times' decision to report on the plea deal.
“We believe that once material is in the public record, it is proper and appropriate to publish it if it is newsworthy,” Times publisher Norm Pearlstine said in an interview with the paper.
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until Walter rules on whether or not to grant Balian a preliminary injunction — which is similar to a temporary restraining order, but more permanent — against the Times.
On July 16, the Times filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over federal district courts in California. The petition, which was filed under seal, essentially asks the appeals court to step in and order the district court to immediately rescind the temporary restraining order.
A coalition of 60 news and press freedom organizations, led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, submitted a letter to the Ninth Circuit in support of the Times' petition.
"It appears that the district court may have entered the temporary restraining order in an attempt to correct the mistaken public filing of the plea agreement, which was meant to be kept under seal," the letter states. "The district court's desire to correct this administrative error, however, cannot justify the imposition of a prior restraint, which has now created a constitutional harm. Although courts have the power to enter sealing orders when common law and constitutional standards are met ... once information is made public, nearly 90 years of constitutional law stand in the way of using prior restraints to prevent a newspaper from communicating the information to its readers."
On Feb. 9, 2018, a Las Vegas judge ordered the Las Vegas Review-Journal and The Associated Press to destroy their copies of an autopsy report of an off-duty police officer killed in a mass shooting.
On Jan. 31, Clark County District Court judge Timothy Williams ordered the Clark County Coroner’s Office to release 58 redacted autopsy reports of the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting to the Review-Journal and AP, which had sued to acquire the records. Following the ruling, the coroner’s office released the autopsy reports to dozens of news organizations. On Feb. 15, The Huffington Post published summaries of all 58 autopsy reports.
The reports that were released to the press were partially redacted and did not include the victims’ names, ages, or other personal and identifying information.
One of the 58 autopsy reports pertained to Charles Hartfield, an off-duty Las Vegas police officer who was killed in the shooting. After the autopsy reports were released to the public, Hartfield’s widow, Veronica Hartfield, sued the Review-Journal and AP, arguing that the autopsy report contained private medical information and should remain confidential.
On Feb. 9, Clark County District Court judge Richard Scotti ruled in favor of Veronica Hartfield, ordering the Review-Journal and the AP to destroy their copies of Hartfield’s autopsy report and to refrain from publishing any details contained in Hartfield’s autopsy report.
Scotti’s order presented a logistical problem for the Review-Journal and the AP. Since the redacted autopsy reports did not include any of the victims’ identifying information, there was no way for the Review-Journal or the AP to tell which report was Hartfield's.
“The only identifying information in the autopsy reports was gender,” Review-Journal managing editor Glenn Cook told the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Cook said that the judge offered the Review-Journal and AP two options, both of which would have infringed on the news organizations' First Amendment rights.
“One of the judge’s solutions to this was to hand over all of the information that just been declared public record and was lawfully released, have the Coroner’s Office staff pick out Hartfield’s and promise to give the rest back,” he said. “The most staggering remedy the judge suggested was to allow government employees into our newsroom, go through all of our records, and find that particular report and destroy a legally obtained document.”
“If anywhere in this country, agents of any government entity were allowed to force their way into a newsroom to rifle through documents and seek out a specific record and destroy it, it would be an unparalleled violation of the press freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment,” he said.
Cook said that he distributed a memo to the Review-Journal newsroom outlining company-wide procedures in the event that representatives of the coroner’s office or Las Vegas police attempt to enter the paper’s newsroom to find Hartfield’s autopsy report.
On Feb. 12, the Review-Journal and AP appealed Scotti's decision, petitioning the Nevada Supreme Court for an emergency writ that would vacate Scotti's order. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Nevada Press Association filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the news organizations.
"Prior restraints on speech and publication cause immediate, irrevocable, and irreversible harm — therefore they are almost always intolerable under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ... Every minute the district court’s order remains in place is another minute of harm suffered by the Media Parties and the public, which is entitled to reporting on the performance of its public agencies," the petition for an emergency writ states.
The Nevada Supreme Court, in Carson City, Nevada, found that a lower court's order preventing the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the AP from reporting on a public autopsy report violated the First Amendment.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,struck down,False,[],"Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Associated Press",public records,,, 2018-01-02 20:48:36.329233+00:00,2023-12-21 20:23:18.483725+00:00,Iowa judge orders Des Moines Register not to publish article about attorney,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/iowa-judge-orders-des-moines-register-not-publish-article-about-attorney/,2023-12-21 20:23:18.367738+00:00,,,,Prior Restraint,"Can privacy trump First Amendment in Iowa Supreme Court case v. Des Moines Register? (https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-priorrestraint/can-privacy-trump-first-amendment-in-iowa-supreme-court-case-v-des-moines-register-idUSKBN1EC2TG) via Reuters, Iowa Supreme Court justice blocks Register's use of court records (https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/12/15/iowa-supreme-court-justice-blocks-registers-use-court-records/952852001/) via Des Moines Register, Iowa justice blocks newspaper from reporting court records (https://apnews.com/4b3ea9382f604eaeb1b9499d8de26bf1) via AP, Iowa Supreme Court justice lifts 'prior restraint' order against Des Moines Register (https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/12/19/iowa-supreme-court-justice-lifts-prior-restraint-order-against-des-moines-register/965110001/) via Des Moines Register, Iowa justice lifts prior restraint order against newspaper (https://apnews.com/c8229b0118234499a006f30ed24c8cd9/Iowa-justice-lifts-prior-restraint-order-against-newspaper) via AP, Prior restraint order issued by judge Wiggins (https://static.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20171219/mcclearyvregister--registerbrief12.15.17.pdf#page=39), How a lawyer tried to seal court records about him, stop the Register from publishing a story (https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2017/12/20/lawyer-mental-disabilities-tried-stop-register-publishing-story-him-and-seal-recordsprior-restraint/965918001/) via Des Moines Register",,,Clark Kauffman (Des Moines Register),,2017-12-11,False,Des Moines,Iowa (IA),41.60054,-93.60911,"On Dec. 11, 2017, Iowa Supreme Court judge David Wiggins issued an order prohibiting the Des Moines Register and reporter Clark Kauffman from publishing information obtained legally through court records. On Dec. 19, Wiggins lifted the stay.
The temporary stay issued by Justice David Wiggins blocked the newspaper from publishing information about Des Moines attorney Jaysen McCleary obtained from private medical records.
“A temporary stay is imposed until the supreme court rules on McCleary's combined applications,” Wiggins wrote in the order. “Pending further order from this court, the defendants shall not disclose or share (other than with legal counsel) any information in the defendants' possession that was obtained exclusively from the reports.”
The records in question were first made public in July 2017, when they were filed by McCleary’s attorney as part of a personal injury suit that he brought against the city of Des Moines (Jaysen McCleary v. City of Des Moines). The records probably should have been filed under seal, but they were not, which, which meant that any member of the public could (theoretically) access them.
McCleary told the Freedom of the Press Foundation that the records containing his private information were mistakenly attached to expert reports that were filed publicly by his attorney.
In November, Des Moines Register reporter Clark Kauffman obtained a copy of the private records and asked McCleary for comment about them. Soon after, McCleary settled with the city of Des Moines and asked for McCleary v. City of Des Moines to be dismissed.
On Nov. 16, McCleary filed a motion in McCleary v. City of Des Moines, asking the District Court to seal the expert reports containing his private records. District Court judge Jeffrey Farrell granted the motion and issued a protective order. The protective order prohibits the parties in McCleary v. City of Des Moines — i.e., McCleary, the city of Des Moines, and their attorneys — from disseminating the sealed records to the public. The order also requires that any “third parties” in possession of the sealed records destroy them.
On Nov. 27, McCleary sued Kauffman and the Register in District Court (McCleary v. Kauffman), claiming that Kauffman conspired with the city of Des Moines to defame him and damage his reputation.
McCleary then filed a motion in McCleary v. Kauffman asking for a temporary injunction. McCleary asked the court to order the Register not to publish any articles including information gleaned from his medical records. He also argued that the paper had violated the protective order issued in McCleary v. City of Des Moines, which instructed “third parties” in possession of the records to destroy them.
On Dec. 7, District Court judge Eliza Ovrom denied the motion for a temporary injunction, ruling that the Register was not subject to the protective order.
“Mr. McCleary alleges that Clark Kauffman obtained copies of said reports during the period they were part of the public court file,” Ovrom wrote in her order. “Even if true, this court cannot enjoin publication of the reports, as such an injunction would violate the First Amendment and Article I, Section 7. Moreover, the defendants in this case were not parties to [McCleary v. City of Des Moines], and are not bound by orders in that case.”
On Dec. 8, McCleary filed an application to show cause in McCleary v. City of Des Moines, essentially asking District Court judge Farrell to hold the Register in contempt of court for violating the protective order.
Farrell denied the motion on the grounds that the Register was not subject to the protective order.
“The application must be denied for the same reasons noted by Judge Ovrom,” Farrell wrote. “Neither Mr. Kauffman nor the Register are parties to this case, and thus, neither are subject to the protective order. As a result, the application is denied.”
McCleary appealed both District Court decisions to the Iowa Supreme Court.
On Dec. 11, Wiggins ordered that the Register not publish the records until court had ruled on McCleary’s appeal.
Wiggins may have seen the order as a typical procedural ruling, intended to ensure that the Iowa Supreme Court had a chance to consider the merits of McCleary’s appeal before the Register published the records.
But whatever his intention, Wiggins’ order had serious First Amendment implications. The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the government from preventing a newspaper from publishing information, barring extraordinary circumstances in which national security is at stake.
On Dec. 19, after the Register had filed a response to McCleary's appeal and McCleary had filed a reply to the response, Wiggins lifted the stay and issued an order denying McCleary's appeal.
Wiggins defended his decision to issue the temporary stay.
"The stay was strictly temporary in nature, its duration limited to the time necessary for the filing of the defendants’ response, the plaintiff’s reply, and this court’s entry of a ruling on the plaintiff’s combined applications," he wrote in the order.
McCleary then asked a three-judge panel to review Wiggins' decision, but the panel affirmed Wiggins' ruling and denied McCleary's appeal.
McCleary told the Freedom of the Press Foundation that he now plans to appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Dec. 20, the Des Moines Register published an article about McCleary that included information obtained from his medical records.
The Polk County courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,dropped,True,[],,,,,