Federal judge blocks California law preventing reporting of sealed arrest records

(CN) — In a win for California journalists, a federal judge agreed Thursday night to a stipulation between government officials and free speech advocates to halt a state law that penalizes the sharing of public information on sealed arrest records.

The law ensures that any information related to sealed arrest records is prevented from dissemination, but First Amendment advocates say that this also prevents journalists, attorneys and even victims themselves from sharing such records, even if they had obtained the information through legal public records requests.

“The press and public have a constitutional right to discuss what’s publicly known,” said Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression attorney Adam Steinbaugh in a statement. “Government officials can’t punish the press and public when officials fail to safeguard information. That responsibility starts and ends with the government.”

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin, a Joe Biden appointee, agreed to a preliminary injunction on the law Thursday, allowing for the publicization of information obtained through records requests or that is otherwise openly available.

In their November lawsuit, nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, its Director of Advocacy Virginia LaRoe and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh — represented by the foundation and the coalition itself — claim that the law prevents journalists from doing their jobs, specifically in relation to reporting on the arrest of former tech CEO Maury Blackman in 2023.

According to the foundation, journalist Jack Poulson obtained the arrest record — which hadn’t been marked with a note that it was sealed, as the law requires — of the former president and CEO of Premise Data, which has ties to the government and provides data to the U.S. military, and published it on his website. Poulson then received multiple requests from San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu’s office requesting that he take down the arrest, which the plaintiffs say was at Blackman’s behest.

This year, Blackman sued Poulson using a John Doe pseudonym in San Francisco State Court demanding $25 million in damages.

LaRoe and Volokh say that they are also now hesitant to report on the incident.

“Because of the anti-dissemination statute and the city attorney’s credible threats to enforce the statute, each plaintiff has refrained from publishing articles or information about the arrest (and related controversy) or otherwise limited their public comments on the matter despite wanting to publish materials that contain information relating to the sealed report,” they write in the suit.

The law allows officials to impose a civil penalty of up to $2,500 for each violation, which the plaintiffs say California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Chiu are at risk of doing at any time.

“The statute’s complete lack of constitutional guardrails vests unfettered discretion in officials like Defendants to enforce the statute’s civil penalties, creating a tool for officials to wield those penalties to silence unfavorable facts about the government or those with whom it works, as the city attorney’s efforts here show,” the plaintiffs say.

The plaintiffs accuse the state and city officials of violating the First Amendment, claiming that enforcement of the law is that content-based, and that the law itself is vague and overbroad.

They also say this chills the speech of not only journalists, but other members of the public, like crime victims and their advocates, commentators on court proceedings, and criminal justice researchers.

“Discussing and sharing lawfully obtained information about arrests is not a crime — it’s a core First Amendment right,” said FIRE Staff Attorney Zach Silver in a statement. “The rich and powerful shouldn’t have the luxury of deploying the government to put their skeletons back in the closet. By standing up for their own rights, the First Amendment Coalition and Eugene Volokh have helped to protect others from facing legal action under California’s anti-dissemination law.”