NEW JERSEY APPEALS COURT TO DECIDE MAJOR DIGITAL AGE PRESS FREEDOM CASE
A NEW JERSEY JUDGE STRIPPED THE PUBLIC OF ITS RIGHT TO SEE EXHIBITS IN CRIMINAL CASES, WILL AN APPEALS COURT GIVE IT BACK?
Scene from The Post, via YouTube.
Feb. 9, 2025
Some of the greatest public servants are journalists. At our best, reporters are guardians of the Republic. Our core purpose, to defend Democracy, is recognized and protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It expressly prohibits Congress from "abridging" freedom of the press.
Real news, like real freedom, isn't free. It's funded by readers, who traditionally purchased newspapers, and businesses who purchased advertisements in those newspapers to reach the readers. But these days people read social media of questionable reliability for free on the Internet, instead of buying newspapers.
Advertisers followed the readers to social media. While Facebook and other Internet-based "platforms" have flourished, 129 New Jersey newspapers have vanished since 2005.
The Star Ledger, New Jersey's newspaper-of-record, was the Internet's latest victim. It published its own obituary Feb. 2 when it ceased publication—it will continue to live online.
The Ledger is lucky. Its sister publication, The Jersey Journal, was killed outright.
In the midst of this systemic gutting of the watchdog press, a judge in New Jersey thought it was a good idea to make the press even weaker by revoking journalists' long-held right to copies of evidentiary exhibits in court cases.
Court reporting is a staple of fact-based journalism. Journalists routinely ask judges for copies of evidentiary exhibits submitted in both criminal and civil proceedings. Because courthouse transparency is required to ensure public trust, such requests are routinely granted—in most places.
New Jersey is one of the exceptions.
For example. The exhibits New York prosecutors used to convict Pres. Donald Trump of a felony are published on the Internet by the state court system—where they're available for free.
Similarly, scores of videos and other evidentiary exhibits used to detain Jan. 6, 2020 Capital Riot defendants before trial were ordered released to the press by a Standing Order.
But when The Free Lance sought evidentiary exhibits in a criminal case in New Jersey, a Passaic County Superior Court judge refused to even consider the request.
Evidentiary exhibits in criminal cases are secret and the public doesn't have the right to even ask a judge to release them, judge Barbara J. Buono-Stanton effectively ruled in State v Marachilian on Mar. 25, 2024.
Judge Buono-Stanton said she felt the need to "just to kind of put a little reality check to this." If she didn't, she "would be letting anyone, anyone write a letter to the court saying, 'I want to see this, this, and this.'"
Judge Buono-Stanton apparently feared granting the request would inspire thousands of citizens to flood New Jersey's courts with a monstrous and terrifying wave of mass requests to inspect and copy every single record the courts ever kept.
New Jersey court rules are supposed to guarantee the public the right to inspect court records held by court clerks, including evidentiary exhibits. Court clerks are supposed to honor requests for court records.
But the Passaic County court clerk denied The Free Lance's request for the exhibits offered into evidence at Marachilian's detention hearing. The clerk claimed the digitized exhibits were returned to the prosecutor and the defense lawyer who offered them into evidence and, thus, the exhibits were no longer court records.
New Jersey's chief administrative judge, Glenn A. Grant, approved this ludicrous legal theory and refused to release copies of the exhibits.
The Free Lance is appealing decisions of both judges Buono-Stanton and Grant to the Appellate Division of New Jersey's Superior Court. That court recognized the critical importance of the case and, on Sept. 12, 2024, ordered both appeals "be considered back-to-back by the same merits panel."
The briefs submitted by The Free Lance are embedded below. They argue that public access to evidentiary exhibits in criminal cases is required by New Jersey’s own court rules, the Garden State’s common law right of public access to public documents, established by New Jersey’s own Supreme Court in 1879, and the US Constitution.
New Jersey's Attorney General, the Passaic County Prosecutor and Marachilian, the defendant, are united in opposition to release of the exhibits. Their briefs are due to be filed in court next week. A decision is expected this Spring.
The Appellate Division could vindicate freedom of the press for news bloggers in the Digital Age and order the exhibits released. It could also order Judge Buono-Stanton to take a closer look at the case, and reconsider releasing the exhibits.
Or it could deny The Free Lance’s appeal altogether, driving another nail in the coffin of the formerly free press.
Send tips or corrections to jasonbnicholas@gmail.com or, if you prefer, thefreelancenews@proton.me