United States Ninth Circuit

In an action arising out of Proposition 8 same-sex marriage litigation, in which a district court judge granted a motion to unseal a video recording of a trial presided over by his predecessor, which recording had purportedly been prepared by the trial judge for his in-chambers use only and was later placed in the record and sealed by him, the order unsealing the recording is reversed, where: 1) the Ninth Circuit assumed for the purposes of the case that the trial recording was subject to the common-law presumption of public access; and 2) the successor judge abused his discretion because the defendants in the trial reasonably relied on the trial judge's commitments in refraining from challenging his actions, and the setting aside of those commitments would compromise the integrity of the judicial process.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/02/2012
• Published 02/02/2012

Judges

• Reinhardt

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David Boies, Andrew P. Pugno