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Sparrowhawk
06-30-04, 11:18 PM
Judge becomes unglued

(CFAC 6/30/04) -- The judicial arrogance award this week goes to Colorado district judge Terry Ruckriegle, the trial judge in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, who issued an emergency injunction to the Denver Post and 6 other media organizations, ordering them NOT to publish, upon penalty of contempt, any stories about a trial transcript mistakenly emailed to them by a hapless court reporter.

The transcript was from a closed-door hearing in which defense lawyers presented evidence about the sexual history of the woman Bryant allegedly assaulted. The court reporter meant to email the transcript to Judge Ruckriegle, but clicked on the media distribution list instead. Oops.

Judge Ruckriegle then issued his genie-back-in-the-bottle order to the media. The order is a perfect text-book example of prior restraint against the press, which is unconstitutional absent the most extraordinary justification (think Pentagon Papers). Moreover, because the news organizations are not parties to the Kobe case, the judge had no jurisdiction to bind them with his no-publish order, valid or not.

So what should the judge have done? Acknowledging that there are limits even on a judge's power, he should have picked up the phone, called the news organizations' editors, and asked-politely-that they voluntarily forgo publication of stories based on the transcript. And the news organizations-which did nothing to get the transcripts except open their email-should have, and probably would have, agreed to the judge's request.

Instead, the case now goes to the Colorado Supreme Court, which yesterday ordered Judge Ruckriegle to explain his actions. The judge, now on a very short leash, was given until Friday to submit a brief.