Judge lifts censorship order in victory for newspaper – NorthJersey.com

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A state judge has thrown outan order that censored The Trentonian newspaper, and attorneys for the publication on Thursday hailed the ruling asa victory for First Amendment rights in New Jersey.

Superior Court Judge Lawrence DeBello ruled in favor of The Trentonian on Monday, lifting an unusual "prior restraint" that had been imposedby another judge, Craig Corson.

At the request of the state Attorney General's Office, Corson issued atemporary injunction in October that prohibited The Trentonian from publishing articles based on a confidential child-abuse complaint obtained by one of its reporters, Isaac Avilucea. The document lays out how a 5-year-old boy from Trenton went to school carrying 30 packets of heroin in his lunchbox one day and crack cocaine in his school folder six weeks later, among other sensitive details.

DeBello, a more senior judge who took over the case andheld two hearings this year, issued an order vacatingthe prior restraint on Monday.

The Trentonian has continued to publishstories about the case, questioning why the boy was allowed to remain with his family after the first incident was reported to authorities. The boy, identified only as "N.L." in court papers, is now in foster care.

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"We want to thank Judge DeBello for affirming and protecting important First Amendment values today," David Bralow, an attorney for The Trentonian at the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, said Thursday."From the time that the Trentonian learned of the unfortunate order, it has expended significant effort to protect its and its reporters First Amendment rights.We are vindicated today."

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office did not respond immediately to a request for comment Thursday. The office may appeal DeBello's ruling.

Judicial orders imposing a prior restrainton a news organization prohibiting it from publishing information on a specific topic are extremely rare in the United States. Attorneys for The Trentonian and Avilucea argued that Corson did not take into account some of the U.S. Supreme Courts most important rulings on the First Amendment, which guaranteethe freedom of the press and impose a very high bar on authorities seeking to censor news organizations.

New Jerseys child welfare agency, the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, got Corson to bar The Trentonian from publishing "any information obtained from the filed verified complaint in any form." The complaint contained sensitive details and confidential allegations being filedagainst N.L.'s parents and paternal grandmother. Represented by the Attorney General's Office in court, the agency alleged that Avilucea obtained the complaint illegaly from the boy's mother, although criminal charges were never filed against the Trentonian or the reporter.

Attorneys for the Trentonian argued that the child abuse complaint was not marked "confidential" and that the boy's mother, Tashawn Ford, parted with it willingly.

"The judge basically found that the state presented no proof Isaac obtained the complaint unlawfully and no proof he encouraged release of the complaint in violation of the law," said Avilucea's attorney, Bruce Rosen of the law firmMcCusker, Anselmi, Rosen andCarvelli.

"I'm glad I'm not going to jail after months of being persecuted," Avilucea said Thursday."Journalism, and a journalist, was on trial for the last five months."

Censoring the press is more serious than a criminal penalty because it doesnt just chill speech; it freezes it altogether, one of the newspaper's attorneys, Eli Segal, argued in January.

Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights, Segal argued, quoting from the U.S. Supreme Courts 1976 decision in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart.

On behalf of the agency, Assistant Attorney General Erin OLeary argued that the freedom of the press under the First Amendment is not an absolute right and that Corsons order prohibiting The Trentonian from publishing certain information was necessary to protect N.L.s privacy.

The more that the world learns of this intensely private situation, the more likely he is to be ostracized by his peers, OLeary argued in January. Allowing confidential documents to be publicly disseminated also could hurt the states ability to investigate child-abuse incidents, she argued.

In a landmark 1971 decision, New York Times Co. v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request from President Richard Nixons administration to prohibit The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing stories based on the Pentagon Papers, a classified study of the Vietnam War. The governments interest in keeping that information secret could not overcome the freedom of the press to choose what to publish, the justices said. That ruling followed a 1931 decision, Near v. Minnesota, in which the Supreme Court said nearly all forms of prior restraint are unconstitutional.

Segal cited the Pentagon Papers case during the hearing and argued that the Trenton child-abuse case continued to be worth the publics attention. New Jersey state officials had not cleared the very high bar required by the U.S. Supreme Court for censorship of the press, he said.

Courts have allowed prior restraints on news organizations to prevent the publication of troop movements during wartime and when a magazine attempted to publish the secret to building a hydrogen bomb. OLeary argued that details about N.L.s case and other child-abuse investigations are similarly sensitive.

In an interview with The Record last year, Floyd Abrams, a leading expert on the First Amendment and one of the lawyers involved in the Pentagon Papers case, said the Trentonian was right to cite that case in its defense.The all-but-total ban on prior restraints exists as a critical protection of First Amendment rights, Abrams said.

Attorney General Chris Porrino's office at first offered to drop the case, provided that The Trentonian destroy the complaint and cease publishing articles about it. The newspapers management and attorneys initially decided to accept the settlement, but Avilucea refused,the agreement was not executed, and the legal battle continued.

"They offered a truce that I wasn't going toput my John Hancock on," Avilucea said.

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Judge lifts censorship order in victory for newspaper - NorthJersey.com