Los Angeles Times Communications v. USDC-CALA
The Reporters Committee and a coalition of 59 media organizations submitted an amicus letter in support of the Los Angeles Times in its challenge to a prior restraint issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The Los Angeles Times published a story about a plea agreement that it obtained from the PACER system. The plea agreement was supposed to be sealed and had apparently been filed publicly by mistake. The district court granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Los Angeles Times from publishing information about the plea agreement and ordered the removal of any article about the plea agreement that had already been published before the court issued its order. The Los Angeles Times filed a petition for writ of mandamus in the 9th Circuit. The amicus letter argues that the district court’s order is an unconstitutional prior restraint, and that the news media cannot be restricted from reporting on court records, even if those records were filed publicly by mistake.