Everything online journalists need to protect their legal rights. This free resource culls from all Reporters Committee resources and includes exclusive content on digital media law issues.
A Louisiana judge ruled on Friday that a host of court documents in the high-profile, racially-charged "Jena Six" case should be given to the news media, the Associated Press reported.
The Cincinnati Enquirer won an Ohio Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that a lower court must decide whether the record of a trial court proceeding was properly sealed.
The appellate court had dismissed the newspaper's case as moot when the records were unsealed. The defendant in the murder case at issue, Michel Veillette, committed suicide while in jail.
A Texas judge on Tuesday sealed the mental health records of a murder suspect, even though a local television station had obtained and aired portions of those same records the day before, reports the Austin American-Statesman.
A federal appeals court in Colorado on Monday refused to strike down a lower court order sealing records in the 1999 Columbine shootings for 20 years, The Denver Post reported.
U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock opted to seal depositions taken from the parents of the high school gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, during a pair of civil lawsuits. Families of several victims wanted the documents released.
Hundreds of criminals in Texas whose records were sealed under a 2003 law have gone on to face new charges in the past two years, "including a handful" of cases of murder and rape, The Dallas Morning News reported today.
A federal appeals court on Monday blocked The Associated Press from accessing Justice Department documents about the American-born Taliban soldier, John Walker Lindh.
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.
Two Utah newspapers sounded the alarms this week over a rule up for debate in the federal district court there that would heavily veil plea agreements in criminal cases.
An Arkansas man is taking matters into his own hands, posting online what he thinks is private information contained in official emails in hopes of spurring his local court to take public case records off the Web.
