Ninth Circuit delivers sweeping victory to news service on public access

Filed 5h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Banjos Unite

Alexander Nakarada · creatorchords.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Ninth Circuit ruled that Idaho violated the First Amendment with a 'process-first' policy that withheld new court filings from public view until after clerks processed them, siding with Courthouse News in litigation that began five years ago. Judge Margaret McKeown wrote that Idaho's privacy justification misplaces the duty, since it is the filer, not the court clerk, who is responsible for what's in a filing.

The ruling affirms an injunction from U.S. District Judge David Nye ordering Idaho to stop the blackout, which had been on hold during the appeal. In a separate concurring opinion, McKeown and Judge Jennifer Sung acknowledged that the court's own 2020 Planet ruling had mischaracterized the type of restriction and understated the legal standard involved, an error the opinion says has since caused confusion in other circuits.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A court admitting it got the wording wrong in a 2020 ruling and that the mistake has been causing headaches ever since is the kind of thing you don't see every day, and it's to their credit they said so plainly. Still, it took five years of litigation to tell a state government that new legal filings are, in fact, public the moment they land at the courthouse. That's not a controversial idea, it's just one some clerks would rather not have to act on.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Banjos Unite · Alexander Nakarada · CC BY 4.0

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