Secret dockets

The Justice Department has asked a judge to close a Jan. 7 hearing in the prosecution of five security guards charged with killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians, The National Law Journal reported. The security guards worked for Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe, at the time of the shootings.

Five Utah news organizations asked a federal judge to unseal records Monday that relate to the highly publicized kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Associated Press reported.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., today refused The Washington Post’s request to open the pretrial proceedings in the manslaughter prosecution of five security guards who were charged in an attack that left more than a dozen civilians dead in Baghdad.

The security guards were working for Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe, in 2007 when they allegedly participated in the unprovoked attack that killed 14 civilians and wounded 20 more.

The officer overseeing legal affairs for the United States Coast Guard has agreed to post all Coast Guard court martial dockets online in early 2009.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has issued a notice pledging that all dockets – court records that list filings, hearing dates, and other basic case information – will be open to the public. 

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 on Thursday denied a newspaper’s request to intervene and unseal records in a sweeping corruption investigation in El Paso, Tex., but agreed to unseal some of the documents in redacted form.

A legal newspaper in Pennsylvania has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision that allowed all records in a federal employment discrimination case to be hidden from the public.

In response to a media group’s push for greater access to a sweeping public corruption investigation in El Paso, Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas agreed Tuesday to make available some redacted transcripts, but opposed any broader order forcing transparency in the case.   

A long-simmering federal inquiry into public corruption in El Paso, Tex. has apparently yielded nine guilty pleas so far. Local attorneys, elected officials and judges have been swept up in the probe. Dozens of search warrants have been served, thousands of dollars seized.

Wiretap surveillance alone lasted two years.