What are the exceptions?

By: Anita Shelburne | Daily Progress
Published: June 06, 2010

We just want to know why. It’s such a simple thing to ask, really.
A court sealed search warrant records in the controversial investigation into the death of University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love. Charged with murder is ex-boyfriend and men’s lacrosse player George Huguely.
Records such as search warrants are public documents that are constitutionally required to be open to the public.
There are, however, certain exceptions specified by law.
We just want to know which exception was invoked in this case.
The Daily Progress and several other media interests have filed suit seeking that answer. We aren’t even asking to see the warrants (one of which The Progress had viewed before the seal was imposed). We just want to know why they were sealed.
A judge last week rejected the media groups’ initial suit, saying essentially that it was filed against the wrong entity. The suit should not have been directed at the clerk of court, who maintains records such as search warrants; it should have been directed at the court itself, said the judge.
Well, then. Because the court order itself is secret, there is no way to be certain who issued it — and therefore no way to know how to effectively challenge the order.
A commentator on The Daily Progress story about this turn of events (“Media: Open order in lacrosse homicide to public,” June 1; see comments section) called it correctly: “Kafka is alive and well in C’ville.”
David Feldman’s scenario runs like this (he postulates a newspaper called the Post Dispatch; for form’s sake we’ll change it to the very real Daily Progress):
DP: “Hi, I’m from The Daily Progress. I’d like to see the warrants in the Yeardley Love case.”
CLERK: “You can’t see the warrants. They have been sealed by court order.”
DP: “Well, can I see the order sealing the warrants?”
CLERK: “No. That order has been sealed also.”
DP: “Well, then. Who signed the order sealing the order sealing the warrants?”
CLERK: “I can’t tell you that. It is sealed with the order sealing the warrants.”
DP: “Well, how can I appeal the sealing of the order sealing the warrants if I don’t know what it is, where it is or the judge who signed it?”
CLERK: “What order?”
Kafka-esque, indeed.
We just want to know why.
Why were the warrants sealed? Does the justification for sealing them meet the constitutional requirements for those limited cases in which public documents are kept secret?
Why won’t someone answer?

What are the exceptions?

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