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.
Two Georgia media organizations are asking a judge to dismiss an unusual gag order placed on 35 Atlanta Public School employees charged with altering standardized tests in a widespread cheating scandal.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News (WSB-TV) filed a joint motion to lift the gag orders on those charged in the cheating scandal. District Attorney Paul Howard agreed to lower the defendants’ bail bond amounts if the defendants agreed not to talk to reporters.
The judge presiding over the fatal Colorado movie theater shooting case granted the release of about three dozen relevant court documents on Monday, but kept many of the records under seal.
Ordering lawyers to comply with rules of professional conduct was a less restrictive alternative to issuing a gag order during a high-profile politically charged Alabama gambling-corruption retrial, the presiding judge said in an opinion explaining the rationale for his decision yesterday.
The sealing of court records and proceedings in an Ohio corruption case was not only unconstitutional, but also unnecessary to ensure defendants receive a fair trial, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press argued in a friend-of-the-court brief filed today with the Ohio Supreme Court.
The Washington state Supreme Court Thursday vacated two separate trial courts' orders, both of which withheld police records from public access under the state's open records laws -- even after some of the records requested were offered as exhibits in a criminal trial -- on the grounds that disclosure would infringe upon a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
A military officer rejected a defense request Thursday to close an upcoming hearing for the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting suspect after the defense claimed pre-trial publicity would impede a fair trial.
Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling received a fair trial in Houston, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Skilling v. United States.
Heavy pretrial publicity does not create a presumption of juror bias that should lead to a change in venue, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the court's main opinion, and the trial court in this case was not required to move Skilling's trial from Houston.
