Access / FOIA
Oklahoma Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision Requiring Public Access to Jail Altercation Video that Led to Inmate’s Death
Anna Kaul and Kaitlin GurneyThe Supreme Court of Oklahoma, in two decisions issued in November 2025 and March 2026, held that public trusts operating detention centers do not qualify as law enforcement agencies under the Oklahoma Open Records Act, and therefore are not entitled to more limited disclosure requirements.
Arizona Trial Court Denies Motions to Dismiss The Intercept’s Suit Seeking Government Surveillance Records
Heather MurrayThe suit could have significant implications for the press and the public’s ability to access public records stored with entities performing a governmental function.
Ohio Supreme Court Won’t Let Trial Judge Dim the Lights on Courtroom Coverage
Griffin R. Reyelts and Melissa L. WattThe case arose from the media's coverage of high-profile trials of former FirstEnergy Corp. executives Charles Jones and Mike Dowling, who were charged for their alleged roles in a 2019 Ohio House Bill 6 bribery scandal.
Tennessee Court Expands Access to Executions for Media Witnesses Based on the First Amendment and State Law
Claudia Liss-Schultz and Allyson VeileA Tennessee trial court joined the Ninth Circuit and the Middle District of Pennsylvania in holding that there is a First Amendment right of access to executions.
January 6, 2021: Saving the Truth from the Whitewash
Lauren Russell, Chuck Tobin, and Max MishkinBefore, the work for the coalition was about providing contemporaneous access to the evidence. Now, the mission pivoted to preserving history, making sure the truth about January 6 is never capsized in the waves of propaganda.
Ohio Supreme Court Rules That On-Duty Police Can Be Crime Victims Under ‘Marcy’s Law’
Jack GreinerThe majority opinion rejected The Dispatch's arguments that voters who approved the Constitutional amendment would not have understood the amendment to cover police officers acting in the line of duty.
Texas Supreme Court Narrows Available Relief Under the Public Information Act
David HelsleyThe ruling significantly narrows the enforcement mechanism of the TPIA and raises new questions about access to public records held by Texas’s most powerful elected officials.
Ninth Circuit Affirms Order Compelling Release of Contractor Diversity Reports
Brooke HendersonLooking forward, as more government work continues to be outsourced to federal contractors, this ruling provides media attorneys with another path when litigating Exemption 4 cases: commerciality is the new battleground. The Ninth Circuit proved that records must be more than simply “related to” a business to pass the threshold test of Exemption 4.
S.D.N.Y. Denies DOJ Request to Unseal Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Transcripts
Matt KristoffersenThe government argued that the Maxwell grand jury materials would reveal new insights about the extent to which Epstein and Maxwell worked together to abuse children — or, at least, that the grand jury transcripts would shed new light on how the government investigated the two. But Judge Engelmayer said these reasons were “demonstrably false.”
Second Circuit Rules That Undecided Motions Are Judicial Documents Entitled to Presumption of Public Access
Sara Benson, Christine Walz, & Cindy GierhartThe Second Circuit found that the district court erred as a matter of law in holding that undecided motions rendered moot by the parties’ settlement of the case were categorically not “judicial documents” subject to a presumption of public access.