Courthouse News Service v. Jewett
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Date Filed: Oct. 28, 2026
Background: In Virginia, members of the public, including the press, can access civil judicial records of the state circuit courts by visiting a courthouse and viewing them on a public access terminal. However, access to those same records using the court system’s online judicial records portal is limited to Virginia-licensed attorneys and select government agencies, who are prohibited from sharing them with members of the public, including journalists.
Courthouse News Service, which reports on civil cases in all 50 states, filed a federal lawsuit against several Virginia court clerks challenging the state statute that forbids attorneys from disseminating public court records. The lawsuit argues that the statute violates the First Amendment and operates as an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech.
The court clerks filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, which a federal judge rejected, prompting them to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Our Position: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, joined by 35 media organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Fourth Circuit to affirm the trial court’s decision and let the lawsuit proceed.
- Courts have routinely recognized that news media access to court records is vital for public oversight of the judicial branch.
- Virginia’s prohibition on sharing electronic court records undermines the press’s right to timely publish the news, compounding the significant challenges already faced by journalists reporting on local courts.
- Virginia’s prohibition on sharing online electronic court records is presumptively unconstitutional because it preemptively forbids communication between attorneys and journalists.
From the brief: “Virginia’s combined access and dissemination restrictions force overstretched local journalists into a Hobson’s choice: promptly arrive at far-flung courthouses across Virginia or let stories wither on the vine.”
Related: In 2023, Reporters Committee filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of CNS’s lawsuit challenging restrictions denying the news media and the public direct online access to court records. In 2025, the Fourth Circuit ruled against the news outlet, holding that the restriction on remote access to judicial records does not violate the First Amendment.