Top New Jersey Court Weighs Judicial Privacy Law Challenge (1)

New Jersey’s top court expressed concern that a state law prohibiting some public officials’ home addresses from being made public—including barring a journalist from publishing the information—could in some cases violate the First Amendment.

Justice Rachel Wainer Apter asked how the court can be responsible for deciding whether the home address of a public official is important to a news story, “without infringing on First Amendment freedom of the press.”

Judge Jack Sabatino of the appellate division, who sat in for this case, said there are “still limited areas where courts can constitutionally second-guess editorial decisions if they’re made, for ...