9th Cir.

On the heels of a Supreme Court ruling that temporarily blocked the release of the names of people who petitioned to repeal a same-sex marriage law in Washington state, the appeals court has released its rationale for its earlier order to disclose the names.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco (9th Cir.) yesterday reinstated a lawsuit brought by former detainees who claim they were tortured as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “extraordinary rendition" program.

A federal jury in Hawaii ruled in favor of The Surfer's Journal last week in a libel lawsuit that had been brought by a surfboard shaper, according to the Pacific Business News.

A federal judge presiding over the prosecution of Thomas Kontogiannis, a friend of former Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, released a previously-secret brief last week in which he criticized government prosecutors for “mischaracteriz[ing] substantial, relevant portions of the record” in their filings before an appellate court.

The brief was unsealed over vigorous government objections.

A federal court of appeals ruling limiting the scope of protection under the Communications Decency Act will not drastically affect online journalism, but the future could still be uncertain, according to lawyers who wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the media.

March 13, 2008  ·   A federal appeals court held that documents relating to a secret guilty plea of a drug cartel defendant, including the summary of what he was pleading to, are presumed open, yet ruled that portions of hearings conducted to determine whether to make public or keep sealed those documents are closed.

Less than a week after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White lifted an injunction against the whistleblower Web site Wikileaks, the Swiss bank dropped its lawsuit.

Julius Baer and Co. said it reserved the right to pursue its case at a later date in the same court or elsewhere.

Last week a federal judge ordered a Web site that posts leaked material to disable itself entirely before coming back to say it only needed to stop posting certain documents related to a case brought by a Cayman Islands bank.

The Ninth Circuit earlier this week issued an opinion with what seemed like a pretty straightforward reading of the current state of access law: before a criminal proceeding can be closed to the public and the news media, a judge must find that there is a compelling interest to do so, and that the amount of closure is "narrowly tailored" to satisfy that interest.

Sep. 7, 2007  ·   A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that daily intelligence briefings provided to President Lyndon B. Johnson more than 40 years ago can still be withheld from the public.