Working with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, we sued the San Francisco City Attorney and California Attorney General on November 22 to challenge a California statute that authorizes city attorneys, district attorneys and the Attorney General to seek civil penalties against anyone who publishes any information related to a sealed arrest record, regardless of how the information was acquired or how newsworthy it is.
The plaintiffs are FAC, its advocacy director Ginny LaRoe, and Eugene Volokh, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law. As explained in the complaint, the statute is chilling their speech about sealed records of the arrest of a former technology executive, especially because the San Francisco City Attorney’s office invoked the statute in a letter to a journalist who reported on the arrest. The defendants agreed to a preliminary injunction preventing them from enforcing the statute against anyone who shares information about a sealed arrest that is already publicly available.
Although we believe all filings in this case should be public in their entirety, we asked the court to place complete versions of certain documents under seal temporarily because they discuss information relating to the sealed arrest, but we argue the defendants should have to justify keeping the papers under seal.
News:
An Early Win in a New First Amendment Lawsuit (12/19/2024)
Legal Documents:
- Stipulation and Order for Preliminary Injunction (12/19/2024)
- Plaintiffs’ Administrative Motion to Seal (11/25/2024)
- Motion for Preliminary Injunction (redacted) (11/25/2024)
- Declaration of Adam Steinbaugh (redacted) (11/25/2024)
- Declaration of Virginia LaRoe (11/25/2024)
- Declaration of Eugene Volokh (11/25/2024)
- Complaint (11/22/2024)