Jurisdiction

Members of the nation’s highest military court questioned Wednesday whether they have the authority to decide a legal challenge to the pervasive secrecy of documents in the court-martial of an Army private accused of the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history.

A Virginia appellate court avoided deciding if a newspaper had a right of access to trial exhibits in a child murder case, despite a dissenting judge’s opinion that a procedural issue should not have barred a ruling that sealing the records violated the media’s First Amendment rights.

New York courts do not have jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit over allegedly defamatory online statements about a rescue group's treatment of dogs that were written in Vermont by another dog welfare group, the New York Court of Appeals ruled last week.