Judge Orders ‘L.A. Times’ To Change Article About Detective With Ties To Organized Crime
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter ordered the Los Angeles Times to remove information from an article regarding John Saro Balian, a Glendale police narcotics officer that is currently on unpaid leave while under a judicial order to be permanently detained. Last week, Balian pleaded guilty to charges including obstruction of justice, accepting a bribe, and lying about his ties to organized crime. On Thursday, he entered a plea of guilty to those charges as part of his agreement with prosecutors. According to court records, Balian is being detained as he was deemed a flight risk and dangerous due to past activities, including witness intimidation and extortion.
The L.A. Times went to press with an article that included the details of Balian’s plea agreement. The agreement was supposed to be sealed, but due to an error that has not yet been identified as human or mechanical, the agreement was made public, which is how the information got to the L.A. Times. Balian’s attorney filed for a restraining order against the paper after the column was printed, and over the weekend, it was granted by Judge Walter, who also ordered the information about the plea agreement be removed from the column. The L. A. Times has complied with the order.
“This story has been updated to remove references from the filed plea agreement, which was ordered sealed by a judge but publicly available Friday on the federal court’s online document database. The changes were made to comply with an order issued Saturday by a U.S. federal judge.”
A federal judge in LA issues a rare and dangerous order forcing @latimes to remove info from a story about plea deal an accused dirty cop struck. We complied but vowed to fight the obvious incursion on 1st amendment. https://t.co/51T9X0am8O
— Joel Rubin (@joelrubin) July 15, 2018
In an interview cited by The Hill, Norman Pearlstine, executive editor of the L.A. Times, stated that the ruling was going to be challenged and was an unusual violation of the First Amendment. He further defended their decision to go to press with the information they had in hand stating, “we believe that once material is in the public record, it is proper and appropriate to publish it if it is newsworthy.”
Kelli Sager, who is one of the attorneys representing the L.A. Times, told Fox News in an interview that ordering the information removed after it has been made public is possibly counterproductive.
“Typically, courts take into account if information was already published. Where it is no longer secret, the point of the restraining order is mooted. To order a publication to claw it back doesn’t even serve the interest that may be intended.”
According to legal precedents cited at Reason, provided with assistance from Prof. Daniel Mitchell, the L.A. Times does have legal, federally set precedent to fall back on should they go forward with an appeal. Several decisions, even from the 9th District, have upheld the right to print information intended to be private if the government releases it accidentally. They cite it as being an ethical debate, but legally okay. They also pointed out that in cases where information was illegally obtained or coerced, which is not the case with the L.A. Times, things would be different.
