Monday, July 16, 2018

Summer

It's pretty quiet in the District right now.  Anyone interested in guest-blogging?  If so, email me directly.

In the meantime, here's a crazy story about a judge ordering a newspaper to delete the publication of a plea agreement:

A federal judge ordered The Los Angeles Times to remove information from a published article on Saturday, a step that legal experts said was extremely unusual and conflicted with the First Amendment. The newspaper said it was appealing the order.
The article, published Saturday morning, described a plea agreement between prosecutors and a police narcotics detective in Glendale, Calif., who was accused of colluding with a Mexican crime syndicate.
The detective, John Saro Balian, 45, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges that he had accepted a bribe, obstructed justice and lied to federal investigators about his involvement with organized crime. Judge John F. Walter of United States District Court for the Central District of California ordered the plea agreement sealed, but a reporter found it posted online on Friday in a public database of federal court documents.
Before the article was published, a lawyer for Mr. Balian told editors at the newspaper that doing so would put his family at risk. The newspaper decided to publish, and a few hours later, it received the court’s order. By 5 p.m. Saturday, it had complied by removing any references from the sealed document, although the article still made clear there had been a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
The order will get reversed and the paper will be permitted to publish the papers.  But it does say something that a judge really thought he could do such a thing. 

8 comments:

Rumpole said...

How about jumping on this FDC forms issue if it's so quiet?

David Oscar Markus said...

As soon as you get the state jails to bring down clients in advance and allow emailing with clients.

FDC used to let us bring in the forms filled out in advance and some of the officers still allow it. I'm not sure why it changed. If you want, just fill it out in advance and then ask for the forms when you get there. Wait a minute and use the pre-filled out ones and use the blank ones for the next visit.

You're welcome.

Anonymous said...

Total deception!

Rumpole said...

That's why he's the best.

Anonymous said...

Conspiracy to obstruct the lawful functions of the bureau of prisons?

Anonymous said...

David - Rump is a state court hack. Fed ct beyond him.

Anonymous said...

My guess is the judge knew the order would get reversed, but by the time it does, the LA Times won't be as incentivized to publish it since people probably won't care anymore. Maybe the risk to Balian's family is mitigated if LA Times decides not to publish in the end. But that's just a guess.

Rumpole said...

10:04 am. How dare you make anonymous comments? What kind of sniveling coward blogs comments anonymously? Really, you should be ashamed of yourself.