Public officials

A New Jersey blogger qualifies for protection under the state’s shield law and does not have to reveal the names of government officials she accused of wrongdoing, a judge ruled.

A Washington, D.C., judge found that the Metropolitan Police Department’s media policy is constitutional, but how the department enforced it against a detective who spoke out against it to a newspaper in 2009 was unlawful.

District Judge James Boasberg ruled that Detective William Hawkins did not break department rules when he talked to a Washington Post reporter because he spoke as a representative of a police union and not a member of the department.

An Alaska Supreme Court decision makes private e-mail messages containing government business subject to the state Public Records Act but also makes obtaining those records difficult.

Friday's ruling held that the state Public Records Act does not prohibit public officials from conducting government business through their private e-mail accounts, potentially posing difficulties for people seeking to access those messages in the future, Alaska media lawyer D. John McKay said in an interview.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled yesterday that authorities cannot charge the public for redaction costs under its public records law.

The decision rejected an attempt by the City of Milwaukee Police Department to charge redaction costs for providing records in two requests filed by reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Rhode Island's governor signed into law yesterday what open records advocates have called the first major revisions in 14 years to its Access to Public Records Act -- changes that will both make more records available and give requestors more rights under the act.

Electronic communications -- specifically tweets, text and e-mail messages -- between city officials discussing public business are subject to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, even if they were sent from personal cellphones and accounts, a state circuit judge ruled.

Three journalists requested access to the sealed file of an Alabama-based federal judge's divorce proceedings wrought with accusations of domestic violence, drug abuse and the judge's alleged affair with his court bailiff. The journalists and other legal watchers have expressed concern that the court quietly sealed the records without taking the standard procedural steps.

A federal judge in Ohio has granted several news media organizations’ request to unseal hundreds of trial exhibits in the racketeering case of an ex-government official.

But U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi declined to immediately release several other exhibits, including recordings of wiretapped conversations, claiming that doing so could affect the appeal and fair-trial rights of James C. Dimora, who is also a defendant in another criminal case alleging substantially similar conduct.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld a 2010 ruling that a former Newport News judge defamed a former court official when she told a newspaper the court official was “institutionalized.”

A Cook County judge declared the Illinois eavesdropping statute unconstitutional last week in the case of a street artist who recorded exchanges with police during his arrest.

Judge Stanley Sacks is the second judge to call the statute unconstitutional within the last year. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy also publicly supported audio recording at a panel discussion in January.