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Friday, February 23, 2007

Courts - More on sealed cases in Connecticut

Typing "sealed cases" in the ILB search box turns up a long list of entries, including this one from June 9, 2004, headed "2nd Circuit rules docket sheets in Connecticut courts are public documents." The entry includes a quote from the Hartford Courant:

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the press and public have a First Amendment right to access the docket sheets that serve as an index to court files, and revived a media challenge involving thousands of sealed Connecticut court cases dating back decades.

U.S. District Court Judge Gerard L. Goettel last November dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Hartford Courant and the Connecticut Law Tribune that sought limited information about the sealed files, saying top judicial branch officials had no power to undo orders made by judges to keep those files secret.

But lawyers for the media argued before both Goettel and the three-judge appellate panel in New York that their request was to access not the files, but merely the docket sheets. Docket sheets identify the parties involved in a case, the judge to whom it was assigned, the nature of the litigation and a table of contents of the various motions and pleadings that were filed.

Here are some quotes from an AP report dated 2/22/07 and headlined "Conn. Judge Grants Media Bid to Lift Secrecy Seal on Some Cases." Some quotes:
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) -- A Superior Court judge's ruling will reveal the identities of people in more than two dozen lawsuits so secretive that their very existence could not previously be confirmed, the Hartford Courant reported Thursday.

Judge Robert E. Beach's ruling, dated last Friday, affects 27 of 40 cases that had been "super-sealed'' by Connecticut judges. The special designation removed cases from court dockets, and court clerks were not even allowed to acknowledge their existence.

"Some have suggested that sealing orders may have been motivated by unseemly factors,'' Beach wrote in his 32-page decision. "Public confidence in the integrity of the judicial branch is essential in its functioning in a free society.''

The ruling follows legal challenges filed four years ago by the Courant and the Connecticut Law Tribune. The two publications sued to get the court system to reveal the identities of people who took advantage of the judicial branch practice of "super-sealing'' cases.

The practice remained a secret until 2003, when the Law Tribune and the Courant revealed the existence of Level 1 cases involving the divorce of University of Connecticut President Philip Austin and a paternity suit against Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. * * *

In 2003, court officials voted to abolish the practice, but did not retroactively unseal any of the files.

Officials eventually unsealed most of the cases, saying they should have never been sealed, but left docket sheets for 40 others - primarily divorces, child custody matters and paternity lawsuits - for Beach to consider.

Beach ruled that docket sheets for 27 cases be released with all information intact. Parties in the cases have 20 days to appeal.

In 12 cases, Beach ordered sheets to be released with the parties' names deleted because they involve cases in which releasing the identity of the parties could compromise their safety, he said. Some of those cases involve people who sought to change their names.

Beach ordered docket sheets for two cases to remain sealed because parties claimed to be FBI informants and cannot have their names revealed. He also ruled that a child custody case since transferred to New York should remain sealed.

Attorney Daniel Klau, who represented the Law Tribune, said the judge's ruling support the point made by the media organizations from the beginning.

"The initial objective of the lawsuit was always just to get the docket sheets in the cases unredacted so we'd know who were the parties, the nature of the case and the judge who issued order to make this case disappear,'' Klau said Thursday.

Klau said a docket sheet is basically a table of contents for the lawsuit that lists the parties, the nature of the case and every document that has been filed. It also contains orders or rulings and the names of the judge or judges who issued them.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 23, 2007 12:08 PM
Posted to Courts in general