Journalists around the country are trying to pry open secret court files that sometimes involve powerful people, dangerous products,
pals of the judges or even
sexual abuse by teachers. I am dedicating today's Al's Morning Meeting to that topic.
These cases involve not only skilled journalists who dedicate months, even years to their work, but also journalism organizations that are willing to dedicate their time and resources, and even sue, to open court files that should have been open all along. Open courts are a bedrock principal worth defending.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press takes you inside the story of how The Seattle Times unraveled the closed world of local courts. Judges had sealed more than 400 civil lawsuits in King County alone. Click here to see the entire Seattle Times collection.
This has been a national issue in recent years. As the RCFP says:
The Times has not been alone in uncovering sealed cases. In February, the Las Vegas Review-Journal began publishing a series about sealing in its local courthouse — cases that involved people with ties to judges, major companies and religious leaders. Those stories have already caused the Legislature and the state's highest court to take notice. And the Miami Herald and other publications have prompted changes in state rules with stories on so-called "super-sealed" cases.
The RCFP story explains how journalists slogged through thousands of case files to find those that affected the most people. Judges admitted there was a problem with many of the sealed cases, but refused to open them, so the paper had to sue to force the cases open. As the RCFP reports,
The Seattle Times had to make some thoughtful decisions about how to write the article in a way that would engage the public:
Just before the newspaper went to court, it ran the first story in the series in March 2006 by Times reporters Ken Armstrong, Justin Mayo and investigative reporter Steve Miletich, who started on the project early that year. For anyone who has ever read a typical big newspaper investigation, the writing style of this one was different.
The reporters were determined that their stories not be about abstract court principles or filled with legal jargon. They did not want to push readers away.
"We used a different tone," Armstrong said. "It was conversational. We were speaking directly to readers. We used a lot of pronouns: we, you, us, them."
The first story, for instance, starts like this:
"Four years ago, a lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court, alleging that a medical device was unsafe. A woman using it wound up in a coma. You'd probably like to know: What's the device? Does anyone in my family use it? Unsafe how?
"But you can't know. You're not allowed to know."
The newspaper also wanted to be upfront with readers about its involvement in the cases.
That first story ended this way:
"We start filing motions tomorrow. We'll let you know how it goes."
(Click here to see the entire story.)
The Las Vegas Review-Journal published a list of 115 sealed cases it found.
Here is the compelling way the Las Vegas paper opened its project:
As if written with invisible ink, dozens of lawsuits filed in Southern Nevada courts virtually have disappeared after judges decided they should be hidden from the public.
Along with the dispute described in each lawsuit, also kept secret are the outcomes of each lawsuit, the name of the judge who sealed each case, whether the plaintiff or defendant had asked that the lawsuit be sealed, and any explanation by a judge for abandoning the fundamental principle that courts shall be open to the public.
In other states, such as Washington, Florida and California, judges are expected to give at least some explanation when sealing a lawsuit or portions of a case. But under the Nevada Supreme Court's highly controversial Whitehead Decision of 1995, Nevada judges now claim authority to try any civil case in complete secrecy, without explanation or notice to the public.
Since 2000, Clark County judges have sealed 115 cases. Though those are a small percentage of all cases filed, litigants involved tended to be wealthy and influential in business, politics or the courts.
The list of litigants in sealed lawsuits filed in Clark County District Court reads like a Who's Who of Las Vegas. The Review-Journal continues:
Included are William McBeath, president and chief operating officer at The Mirage and chairman of the Metropolitan Police Committee on Fiscal Affairs; Stephen Cloobeck, developer of the Polo Towers on the Strip and a member of the standing committee of the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline; Feld Entertainment, the former production company for Siegfried & Roy; Lorraine Hunt, former lieutenant governor and Clark County commissioner; Jared Shafer, former Clark County public administrator; Venetian Casino Resort; Rio Properties; Hotel Ramada of Nevada, former owner of the Tropicana; KVVU Broadcasting, the Fox television affiliate in Las Vegas; the Spearmint Rhino strip club; the Roman Catholic Bishop of Las Vegas; and Beckley Singleton, a longtime Las Vegas law firm that at one time had U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as a shareholder.
Here are some tips for journalists who want to unseal sealed cases. The process usually starts by knowing the rules of your state. Sometimes those rules are clearly written, as is the case with these rules from Connecticut. Open court dockets have been an issue there as well, but judges are promising more open dockets. You may recall that some of the Catholic Church priest scandal records were sealed there.
Does this kind of reporting result in change?
Look at this passage from The Seattle Times:
[...] since The Times began reporting on improper sealing practices in March of this year, such secrecy has evaporated. A recent review of King County court records failed to turn up even one civil, guardianship or divorce case that has been sealed in its entirety in the past nine months.
Instead of being hidden away, files are being opened up.
Files sealed: then and now
Between 1990 and 2005, King County judges and commissioners sealed in their entirety:
420 civil cases
266 guardianship cases
692 divorce cases
Total, 1990-2005: 1,378
Cases sealed since
The Times' series began: 0
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
