Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals directed the parties in a case involving Jeffrey Epstein to provide the Court with any final redaction requests they have:
ORDER, dated 07/17/2019, ordering the parties Virginia L. Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell to file one-page letter briefs no later than 07/19/2019 indicating any additional locations in the record that might implicate the privacy interests of the individuals named on page 59, line 25 Exhibit KK of the motion for summary judgment, by JAC, RSP, CFD, FILED.[2610854] [18-2868] [Entered: 07/17/2019 02:23 PM]
These files are being unsealed as a result of a lawsuit first filed by Cerno Media and later joined by the Miami Herald. Cerno Media sought to unseal over 2,000 records implicating Jeffrey Epstein and his fellow sex traffickers. The lower court ruled against Cerno Media. Cerno Media filed an appeal.
While Cerno Media’s appeal was pending, the Miami Herald filed its own motion to unseal the records, lost before the same judge as we did, and they appealed.
The Second Circuit Court of Appealed reversed the lower court ruling, ordering the files the be released:
Michael Cernovich, and the Miami Herald Company (with reporter Julie Brown) appeal from certain orders of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Robert W. Sweet, Judge) denying their respective motions to unseal filings in a defamation suit. We conclude that the District Court failed to conduct the requisite particularized review when ordering the sealing of the materials at issue. At the same time, we recognize the potential damage to privacy and reputation that may accompany public disclosure of hard‐fought, sensitive litigation. We therefore clarify the legal tools that district courts should use in safeguarding the integrity of their dockets. Accordingly, we VACATE the District Court’s orders entered on November 2, 2016, May 3, 2017, and August 27, 2018, ORDER the unsealing of the summary judgment record as described further herein, and REMAND the cause to the District Court for particularized review of the remaining sealed materials.
Due the to scrutiny Cerno Media’s lawsuit and the Miami Herald’s extensive coverage brought, Epstein was arrested for sex trafficking.
As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals wrote, Cerno Media led the charge on the lawsuit to unseal the records in the Epstein case:
On January 19, 2017, Cernovich, an independent blogger and self‐described “popular political journalist,” moved to intervene, seeking to unseal the summary judgment record, and Dershowitz joined his motion. On April 6, 2018, after the case had settled, the Herald moved to intervene and unseal the entire docket. The District Court granted each of these motions to intervene, but denied the related requests to unseal in orders entered November 2, 2016, May 3, 2017, and August 27, 2018, respectively. The Appellants timely appealed from each of the orders denying their respective motions to unseal. Although each Appellant seeks the release of a different set of documents, all argue that the District Court failed to analyze the documents individually or properly apply the presumption of public access to court documents. We therefore ordered that the appeals be heard in tandem and held argument on March 6, 2019. On March 11, 2019, we issued an order to show cause why we “should not unseal the summary judgment motion, including any materials filed in connection with this motion, and the District Court’s summary judgment decision.”8 The parties timely filed their responses.
You can support that lawsuit here.
