An Albemarle County judge this afternoon dismissed a request from The Daily Progress and other news organizations that sought to make public a court order connected to the case of the killing of University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love.
Judge Cheryl Higgins ruled in Albemarle Circuit Court that the petition filed by the media organizations did not use the proper procedure and granted a motion to dismiss the petition filed by Circuit Court Clerk Paul Garrett.
A lawyer representing the newspapers said it's likely that the papers will continue to request that the judge open the court order. The next step, said Richmond-based attorney Craig Merritt, is to determine the path that Higgins might consider appropriate for the request.
The court order at issue was entered earlier this month amid heavy publicity over the case. Love was found dead in her bedroom by a roommate May 3 and police later that day filed a first-degree murder charge against men's lacrosse player George Huguely in the case.
Several affidavits for search warrants in the case were open to the public and were used by media across the country to report on the case. One of three search warrant returns also was briefly available to the public in the clerk's office, but obtained only by The Daily Progress. A court order then sealed the warrant returns and sealed the paperwork behind the order as well.
Find a full report in Thursday's Daily Progress.
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