Prior Restraints

Citing a desire to avoid "an impending media circus," a Florida county sheriff agreed on Thursday to stop his four-year custom of greeting potential jurors in a parking lot prior to their arrival at court for jury duty.

A Florida judge on Monday issued an order prohibiting the distribution of leaflets or pamphlets created to sway jurors outside the Orange and Osceola courthouses located in Orlando.

A defendant charged with espionage for allegedly leaking "national defense information" to a news reporter has moved to have his case dismissed on First Amendment and other grounds.

The Mississippi Supreme Court issued an order Thursday to lift an injunction prohibiting a Hattiesburg television station from airing video images of alleged child abuse at a juvenile detention center.

The announced plan by a Long Island attorney to release an internal police document purportedly finding "massive violations and failures by multiple members of the Nassau County Police" suffered a serious setback Jan. 14 when the court for Eastern District of New York granted a protective order that restricted access to the Internal Affairs Unit Report by the Nassau County Police Department.

Although U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, wants WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, to be added to a special government list of entities and individuals that includes terrorist groups and drug trafficking organizations, the Treasury Department has reportedly declined to do so. King called Wikileaks a "clear and present threat to U.S. national interests," in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

A television station in Hattiesburg, Miss., filed an emergency petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court Thursday to vacate a juvenile court's injunction prohibiting the station from airing video images of alleged child abuse from a juvenile detention center.

Attorneys for the recipient of police documents obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act report that the city of Richmond, Va., and its police chief intend to drop their court case seeking the return of the produced documents.

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday to address the Wikileaks controversy and discuss the future of the Espionage Act in light of demands that the government prosecute the site's founder, Julian Assange. The committee heard testimony from lawyers and advocates that stressed the importance of finding a balance between government transparency and maintaining national security secrets.

A California state court in Placer County heard arguments Tuesday on a motion from the local district attorney's office for a controversial gag order in a shopping mall arson case. The attorney for the accused and the Sacramento Bee opposed the gag order, which, if granted as proposed, would apply not only to the parties and their attorneys, but also to investigating agencies and their employees as well.