Simply filed right now, by our legal professionals on the Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression (Adam Steinbaugh, JT Morris & Zachary Silver) and the Coalition’s David Snyder and David Loy. We’re difficult Cal. Penal Code § 851.92(c), which supplies,
Until particularly licensed by this part, an individual or entity, aside from a felony justice company or the particular person whose arrest was sealed, who disseminates info referring to a sealed arrest is topic to a civil penalty of not lower than 5 hundred {dollars} ($500) and less than two thousand 5 hundred {dollars} ($2,500) per violation. The civil penalty could also be enforced by a metropolis lawyer, district lawyer, or the Legal professional Basic. This subdivision doesn’t restrict any current non-public proper of motion. A civil penalty imposed below this part shall be cumulative to civil treatments or penalties imposed below every other legislation.
Talking for myself, I might like to write down a few explicit lawsuit and explicit authorities actions that stem from the publication of data referring to a sealed arrest—however any detailed put up on these issues would itself find yourself containing such info, and would thus itself violate the statute. We’re making an attempt to dam the enforcement of the statute, counting on precedents equivalent to Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co. (1979), which struck down a state legislation barring the publication of the names of juvenile defendants. I hope to have the ability to weblog extra in regards to the case because it proceeds, and particularly as soon as we get an injunction.
UPDATE: I ought to add that the S.F. Metropolis Legal professional’s workplace not too long ago despatched demand letters primarily based on the statute to a Substack e-newsletter writer and to Substack itself; that’s one factor that I might like to debate in rather more element in a future put up.
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