PASADENA, Calif. (CN) – In a First Amendment case over press access, a Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday closely questioned lawyers for California’s court administrators who are appealing a lower court order that said the right of timely access to new civil complaints attaches when the court receives them.
Judge James Otero in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled in 2016 that Ventura’s court clerk could not justify withholding the new complaints. Backed up by the administrative superstructure of California's courts, the Judicial Council, the clerk appealed that decision.
At a hearing Thursday morning in the Ninth Circuit’s historic Pasadena courthouse, a staff lawyer for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press spoke on behalf of national media organizations including the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. She urged the panel of appellate judges to consider the importance of traditional press access to new complaints on the day they are filed.
“News organizations rely on the First Amendment right of timely access when they send their reporters to the courthouses around the country to access newly filed complaints so that they may report on them to the public,” said Caitlin Vogus, representing the national media.
Sitting high on the bench in the expansive and ornate Courtroom One, arguments were heard by Ninth Circuit judges Kim Wardlaw, Mary Murguia and Randy Smith.
Over the course of the morning’s arguments, the lawyer representing the clerk questioned whether a First Amendment right of access even applies to new civil complaints, renewing an old argument that the press does not have a right to see a new complaint until a judge has acted on it.
“We’ve already decided that,” said Judge Wardlaw.
“Have we decided that, that is the question,” said Judge Smith.
On behalf of the Judicial Council and the clerk, Robert Naeve with Jones Day answered, “Do we understand that there is a timeliness requirement, yes.” But he said there was doubt as to “when that attached.”
“You’re arguing your point now that it doesn’t attach until some judge has touched it,” Wardlaw shot back. “That is clearly wrong.”
Tradition
The case was brought in 2011 by Courthouse News against Michael Planet, the court clerk in Ventura Superior Court, and is now on its third trip to the Ninth Circuit. The issue at the heart of the case is whether the clerk can justify withholding press access to the day’s new civil complaints for administrative processing, often called “docketing.”
That policy runs contrary to longstanding tradition where news reporters reviewed the new cases when they crossed the clerk’s counter, ahead of docketing.
In the lower court, Otero ruled in 2016 that a timely right of access attaches to the new complaints when they are received. In the course of that 30-page order, he noted that despite a new scanning policy, the court was still holding back roughly one third of the cases.
“Staff at Ventura Superior Court acknowledged these delays, as evidenced by internal memoranda that identify backlogs ranging from several days to several weeks,” said Otero in his ruling.