Vermont State Court’s Media Access Policy Needs Reconsideration

A Vermont state court’s practice of delaying news organizations’ access to judicial documents violates the First Amendment, but a federal order restricting the court from reviewing those documents at all before making them public was improper, the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday.

A federal district court, on remand, must reconsider how the Vermont court can develop a document screening process that complies with the First Amendment, a split panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said.

The state court “may well develop new, well-tailored, pre-access screening processes that will provide sufficiently speedy access so as to be ...