A federal judge handed down a ringing endorsement of the First Amendment and open courts in rejecting a bid by five local nonprofits controlled by imprisoned Rabbi Daniel Greer to keep their legal business secret.
That open-courts defense came at the end of a 25-page ruling handed down on Friday by federal Judge Charles Haight, Jr. in the case Eliyahu Mirlis v. Edgewood Elm Housing Inc., F.O.H. Inc., Edgewood Village Inc., and Yedidei Hagan Inc.
Haight rejected a motion by Greer’s team to seal affidavits that detail how much the imprisoned rabbi owes a battery of lawyers seeking to help spring him from prison, avoid paying millions of dollars to a sexual-abuse victim, and buy the Edgewood Yeshiva out of foreclosure.
In the process, Haight rejected an argument that such documents should be shielded from public view in order to prevent the press from publishing what the defendant decried as unfavorable articles.
The First Amendment ruling was an ancillary part of a broader decision in a so-called “reverse veil-piercing” case brought by Eliyahu Mirlis against Greer’s five local housing nonprofits in a bid to collect on a largely unpaid $22 million judgment against Greer, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping Mirlis while he was a student at Greer’s Edgewood Yeshiva.
Friday’s ruling focused primarily on Haight’s decision to not allow Greer’s housing companies to spend money meant for supporting rental properties instead on Greer’s and the Yeshiva’s high-priced lawyers. (Click here to read a full article about the decision, its context, and about how it revealed over $308,000 of Greer’s and the Yeshiva’s legal debts.)
The final nine pages of Haight’s decision are dedicated to the push by Greer’s housing nonprofits to block the public and the press from viewing certain court records detailing the legal debts those housing companies hoped to pay off.
That section of Haight’s ruling serves as a full-throated defense of public access to judicial documents — and, by extension — the courts themselves.
Most of Haight’s First Amendment defending came in the form of quotations and excerpts from other judicial decisions. They offer a clear insight into the judge’s — and the court’s — understanding that public access to the courts serves as a bedrock to their legitimacy.
Some of those excerpts that made it into Haight’s decision Friday include:
• “Under both the common law and the First Amendment, there is a strong, long-established presumption of public access to judicial documents .…” Sardarian v. Fed. Emergency Mgmt. Agency, No. 3:19-CV-910 (CSH), 2019 WL 8331444, at *1 (D. Conn. Sept. 16, 2019); accord Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 119 – 120 (2d Cir. 2006).
• “[P]ublic confidence in our judicial system cannot long be maintained where important judicial decisions are made behind closed doors and then announced in conclusive terms to the public, with the record supporting the court’s decision sealed from public view.” (quoting Procaps S.A. v. Patheon Inc., No. 12 – 24356-CIV, 2013 WL 5928586, at *5 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 1, 2013)).
• “[T]he natural desire of parties to shield prejudicial information contained in judicial records from competitors and the public … cannot be accommodated by courts without seriously undermining the tradition of an open judicial system. Indeed, common sense tells us that the greater the motivation [an entity] has to shield its operations, the greater the public’s need to know.” Brown & Williamson Tobacco v. Fed. Trade Comm’n, 710 F.2d 1165, 1180 (6th Cir.1983) )
• “[A]ny step that withdraws an element of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat and requires rigorous justification.” United States v. Aref, 533 F.3d 72, 83 (2d Cir. 2008).
In addition to support the public’s right to court documents, Haight also rejected Greer’s companies’ contentions that court documents should be kept private because they would be reported on by certain “biased” news outlets.
While Greer’s companies did not identify the Independent by name in its motion, the judge recognized that this local news outlet is clearly the one being referred to, since Mirlis included in one of his motions copies of three Independent articles about Greer’s legal troubles.
“Defendants offer no compelling evidence of Plaintiff’s alleged motivation to help the New Haven Independent ruin the reputations of Greer and the Yeshiva,” Haight wrote. “Noting that Plaintiff included articles published by the New Haven Independent in his opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Modify is insufficient to establish this purpose. Similarly, Defendants do not point to specific evidence underlying their claims that the New Haven Independent is motivated by a bias against Greer and the Yeshiva. Conclusory statements about ‘a clear bias against Greer and the Yeshiva,’ Doc. 77 at ¶ 3, and references to ‘a simple reading of those bias[ed] articles,’ Doc. 84 at 1, are unpersuasive.”
Click here to read Haight’s 25-page decision from Friday in full.
Good.