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.
In the first decision ever in Virginia to address the issue of moot arguments, the state Supreme Court decided Thursday that a judge incorrectly denied a local newspaper access to trial exhibits in a 2011 child murder case.
The justices also ruled that the case was not moot despite the fact that the contested documents sought by the Newport News Daily Press were released to the public two years ago.
A Virginia appellate court avoided deciding if a newspaper had a right of access to trial exhibits in a child murder case, despite a dissenting judge’s opinion that a procedural issue should not have barred a ruling that sealing the records violated the media’s First Amendment rights.
A U.S. District judge rejected a motion by Rielle Hunter, the former mistress of John Edwards, to keep certain exhibits secret in the government's case against the former U.S. senator accused of receiving illegal campaign contributions during his presidential bid to hide the pairs' alleged affair and pay her expenses.
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.
Four media organizations jointly filed a motion Wednesday asking the District of Columbia Superior Court to grant public access to court documents in an ongoing criminal trial involving the murder of Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old Washington, D.C., intern who disappeared in 2001.
