The wealthy Hollister Ranch enclave has begun working with California officials on a plan to open its gates, as required by a recent state law mandating beach access. But not every beach lover thinks unfettered public access to otherwise private coastal property is a good thing.
Read moreA federal judge said Wednesday that he doesn’t see why video recordings of a historic bench trial over California’s same-sex marriage ban should not be made public on August 12, a date that marks the official closure of the case 10 years ago.
Read moreWhile some courts have made strides to preserve access to legal proceedings during the coronavirus pandemic, First Amendment advocates say others are still withholding records and shutting the press and public out of hearings.
Read moreIn a dispute over the withholding of workplace safety records, a federal judge on Monday called Amazon’s practice of marking as “confidential” government-mandated logs of injuries and illnesses at its warehouses potentially disturbing.
Read moreIn writing about our long war for access to court records, I sometimes forget to mention the obvious, that this conflict is played out under the aegis of the First Amendment.
Read moreThe language used for the electronic filing of court documents translates into an older, simpler set of terms for paper filing. Press access hangs on understanding that translation.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has darkened courtrooms and snarled court operations throughout the country. But it’s also been a driving force for tech innovation in the courts, with virtual hearings and phone conferences preserving press and public access to proceedings.
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One could say it’s a matter of choice. Clerks in e-filing courts can give the press access on intake. And some choose not to.
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For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic caused thousands of politicians, regulators and court employees to abruptly abandon the downtown core, small albeit definitive signs of life are emerging throughout California’s capital and its mass of government institutions.
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In a rape case that sparked outrage over the ruling that a finger in the anus is no more sexual than a handshake, Croatia won a bit of save-face for protecting the victim’s privacy.
Read moreAs Tennessee state courts start to open up and hold in-person judicial proceedings, an analysis shows that few of the courts’ Covid-19 plans have any provisions describing how the public and press can observe.
Read moreFederal courts, including the Ninth Circuit, automatically make e-filings public the moment they are received. The administration of justice has not suffered for it.
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Open for business or closed like it’s Sunday: the divergent ways in which San Francisco and San Diego courts have dealt with the pandemic can perhaps best be encapsulated in the clashing positions taken by their leaders.
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The vast network of courts in California have reacted to the pandemic in starkly different ways. Nowhere is the fault line wider and more visible than in Southern California.
Read moreThe negative presumption of the press as an overweening and demanding group found its way into a recent Ninth Circuit opinion on access to public filings. In fact, the request from Courthouse News has been both moderate and flexible over time, as the author testified on cross-examination in a federal courtroom.
Read moreCNS has at extraordinary cost sought to enforce traditional forms of press access to new court filings. That same form of access, apparently unbeknownst to some jurists, is what the federal courts themselves enforce in the electronic age.
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The European Union’s highest court ruled Thursday that an environmental law charity cannot have access to documents relating to EU trade agreements.
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Bemoaning the government’s clandestine process of approving widely unregulated PFAS chemicals, environmentalists brought a federal complaint Wednesday to make the chemical program transparent.
Read moreWhen the press says an e-inbox would return traditional press access to new court filings, it raises some doubt. A judge might ask, so how does all this work.
Read moreAs a series of judicial opinions lifts the fog of pretext, it becomes apparent that court clerks can put in place an electronic inbox that functions precisely as the old wood box on the clerk’s counter used to work, allowing reporters to see new court filings the day they are received.
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