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Court Reconsiders Order Sealing Police Attorneys’ Public Filing of Information They Sought to Suppress

Published on Wednesday, April 1, 2015 | 7:31 pm
 

The California Court of Appeal Wednesday said it is considering vacating its order to seal from public access a court brief which contains 10 verbatim excerpts from an official report about the fatal shooting of Kendrec McDade by Pasadena police.

The brief at issue was filed by attorneys for the police officers who shot McDade in a legal bid to suppress the full public release of that Office of Independent Review Report about the incident.

After the officers’ brief was publicly available for nine days in the Court files, their attorneys said they had “inadvertently” disclosed excerpts from the very report they were trying to suppress and asked the Court to seal the brief.

Last week, the Court granted the officers’ motion to seal the brief. Today the Court said, in effect, it will now reconsider that order.

After the Court issued the March 25 gag order, the excerpts in the filing were published in full or summarized by both the Pasadena Star-News and Pasadena-based public radio station KPCC. Then last Monday night, activist Michelle White and six others read the excerpts aloud into the public record of the Pasadena City Council.

White earlier revealed that she was the source of the document sent to the Star News and other media outlets (including Pasadena Now).

White did not apologize for doing so, noting that she was not a party to the lawsuit, that she had not been served with the Court’s order, and that the Court therefore had no jurisdiction over her to prevent her from distributing the brief.

White’s declaration said that she received the officers’ brief from civil rights attorney Dale Gronemeier before the Court issued its sealing order. Gronemeier filed a declaration with the Court Friday saying he had sent the officers’ brief to at least 20 people before the Court’s sealing order.

Last week, the LA Times and the Gronemeier filed opposition to the sealing order , citing authorities that the order is an unconstitutional prior restrain that violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the free press protections of the California constitution. They were supported by an Amicus letter from the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal,
Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, the chain that owns the Star-News, and a host of free press organizations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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