News organizations challenge Virginia's ban on attorneys sending court records to reporters
Lee Enterprises and Courthouse News on Tuesday filed suit against the court administration of Virginia, challenging a law that forbids attorneys from sharing public court records, according to Courthouse News Service.
Lee Enterprises, owner of publications including 12 newspapers, and Courthouse News filed the First Amendment complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia against the commonwealth, stating that the law violates the First Amendment and a law prohibiting prior restraint on speech.
Unlike other states, Virginia limits public access to court records in several ways, according to the article. Those include only allowing lawyers to see online court documents via a subscription-based system called Officer of the Court Remote Access, or OCRA, and forbidding attorneys to distribute records to nonlawyers, including members of the press, the story says.
The public can see records only by visiting the courthouse where the record is filed during posted business hours, according to the complaint.
The story says reporters from Lee Enterprises’ newspapers and Courthouse News can’t receive new civil complaints from their own counsel, and attorneys violating the distribution ban faces penalties ranging from having online access halted to disbarment.
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