The Daily Progress and other media outlets are again requesting that a court order sealing search warrant reports in the Yeardley Love homicide case be opened to the public.
Craig Merritt, a Richmond-based attorney for The Daily Progress, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Washington Post and the Associated Press, on Tuesday filed a petition for leave to intervene and a motion to unseal the order.
The sealing order seals search warrant records pertaining to searches at two apartments and of George Huguely, a former fourth-year University of Virginia student and lacrosse player who has been accused of killing Love, who also was a fourth-year and a lacrosse player at UVa.
Merritt’s previous request to unseal the order, in the form of a verified petition for writ of mandamus, was rejected by Judge Cheryl Higgins last week during a hearing in Albemarle County Circuit Court.
The judge ruled that the media should have filed a challenge directly to the sealing order rather than trying to force Paul C. Garrett, the city circuit court clerk, to hand over the document. Merritt said during that hearing that there is no public record of the sealing, and therefore he hadn’t thought there was a direct way to challenge the sealing of the order.
Huguely’s case is in the Charlottesville General District Court, but search warrant records are kept in the circuit court clerk’s office.
Merritt has said his clients may challenge the order if it is unsealed, but it depends on the reasons given for sealing the search warrants in the high-profile case.
A hearing on the latest petition has not yet been set.
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