Discovery materials

An attorney who opposes an Ohio city prosecutor accused of racial discrimination is facing possible contempt charges after he released text messages involved in the lawsuit to two local newspaper reporters.

The attorney, Scott Cochran, and his client, the Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown, are accused of releasing the documents in violation of a court order requiring that any personal information contained in the records be redacted before their public release.

A federal trial court in California granted a newspaper's request for documents in a civil lawsuit involving a 2007 forest fire that burned down tens of thousands of acres northeast of Sacramento, ruling that the writings became public records once they were filed with the court.

The Supreme Court of Texas on Friday granted a journalist's emergency motion to temporarily suspend a lower court's order to turn over his computer hard drive in a defamation suit filed by the mother of the late Anna Nicole Smith.

Atlanta freelance journalist Art Harris appealed the motion on Sept. 11, the same day it was granted, after it was denied by an intermediate appellate court in Texas.

A Manhattan judge considering whether to unseal approximately one million pages of documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks said yesterday that he will likely deny requests for public access, Reuters reports.  

A Manhattan federal court will hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether more than a million pages of documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks should remain sealed.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the United States District Court in New York City will hear arguments from The New York Times and the Reporters Committee, as well as victims’ families and attorneys for the aviation industry defendants.

For the second time in nearly three years, a coalition of news groups and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are pushing for openness in an ongoing antitrust suit between computer industry players AMD and Intel.

In its latest bid to permeate the secrecy that has all but shut reporters out of AMD v. Intel, the media coalition filed a motion Thursday saying documents have been sealed too readily and hearing transcripts have been closed without explanation from the court.