Judge reconsiders order banning legal publication from publishing story
A Connecticut judge heard new arguments on Monday as he reconsidered his Nov. 24 decision to bar the Connecticut Law Tribune from publishing a story about a child custody case.
As Judge Stephen Frazzini heard arguments in New Britain, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed to hear the Law Tribune’s appeal, report the Hartford Courant, the Associated Press, the Connecticut Mirror and the Connecticut Law Tribune.
A lawyer for the Law Tribune argued Frazzini’s ban on publication was a prior restraint that violated the First Amendment. The newspaper had based its unpublished article on a public document—a habeas petition by the children’s father contesting their temporary custody by the Department of Children and Families. The document has since been sealed and the case has been transferred to juvenile court, where judges have discretion under a state law to bar the news media from disclosing information that would identify a child.
A lawyer for the children’s mother and their guardian ad litem asked Frazzini on Monday to keep in place the bar on publication. But they referred to the parents’ last name by mistake during the arguments, according to the Hartford Courant.
“I ask that that be stricken” from the record, said the guardian ad litem, Susan Cousineau.
