The search warrants won't be unsealed ... just portions of the orders to seal the search warrants.
Confused yet?
A hearing is set for July 1 requesting the sealed search warrants be released.
The Charlottesville Daily Progress had been perplexed earlier in the week about the search warrants and wrote:
Records such as search warrants are public documents that are constitutionally required to be open to the public.Stay tuned....
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.
...
[Commentator] David Feldman’s scenario runs like this ...:
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?”
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