SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 11 – Unsealing
wrongful hidden court filings is a task Inner City Press
has undertaken first in the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York, most recently in the Live
Nation trial,
and in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in the OneCoin
/ Sebastian Greenwood case.
Now, Inner City Press takes note of,
and calls out, a sealing in the Middle District of
Georgia. Two candidates for that state's Supreme Court,
ShaMiracle J. Rankin and Jennifer Auer Jordan, have filed
a sealed lawsuit against members of the Special Committee
on Judicial Election Campaign Intervention of the Judicial
Qualifications Commission.
That's their right. But sealing the
lawsuit, in the run-up to the May 19 election, does not
appear legitimate, from a public courts point of view. The
District's Chief Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner has not once
but twice granted sealing. There is a May 11 hearing in
the District - but will it too be sealed? Why not allow an
audio-only call-in line for the public? Inner City Press
has written in:
Dear Chief Judge Gardner's Courtroom Deputy
Marcia Alvarez-Benavidez:
I write as a journalist for Inner
City Press. I have just reviewed, and hereby
near-immediately oppose, the plaintiffs' Reply in Support
of Their Motion to Seal (Dkt. 36, filed May 11, 2026) in
the above-captioned matter. The plaintiffs are candidates
for judicial office in Georgia who are subject to Judicial
Qualifications Commission proceedings. They ask this Court
to seal the record of their federal lawsuit — filed during
an active election — on the theory that public knowledge
of their own JQC allegations would deprive them of Article
III standing. With respect, that argument has it
backwards. The public's right of access to court records
is at its apex, not its nadir, when the subject of those
records is the fitness for judicial office of candidates
currently seeking election.
The plaintiffs' theory — that a
federal court should seal its own docket to protect
jurisdiction that depends on secrecy — would, if accepted,
allow any litigant to obtain a sealed record simply by
constructing a standing theory that requires privacy to
survive. That is not what Romero v. Drummond Co., 480 F.3d
1234 (11th Cir. 2007), contemplates, and it is not
consistent with the common law and First Amendment right
of public access recognized in Nixon v. Warner
Communications, 435 U.S. 589 (1978). The temporary
seal pending the election is particularly troubling. The
public interest in knowing about judicial disciplinary
proceedings against judicial candidates is greatest during
an election, not after it. Please unseal
and provide telephonic access. Watch this site.
Separately, Inner City Press has sought unsealing in the Northern District of Illinois where it has come across entirely sealed dockets. On May 8, this:
Subject: Press Access — 1:25-mc-00506
USA v. Suppressed — Motion to Unseal is Itself Sealed
Dear Magistrate Judge Appenteng, This
is a request to unseal the docket and underlying orders in
the above-captioned matter, or in the alternative, provide
a written explanation of the legal basis for continued
sealing. This docket came to ICP's
attention through public court records:
Docket entry 4 filed May 8, 2026
reflects a government "Motion to Unseal the Search Warrant
Nunc Pro Tunc."
When a member of the public — or a journalist — attempts
to access that motion on PACER, the system returns: "You
do not have permission to view this document."
The result is an absurdity the public right
of access is designed to prevent: a motion asking this
Court to unseal a record is itself sealed, leaving the
public unable to read the government's own stated reasons
for unsealing, or to assess whether any unsealing
ultimately granted will be complete. I respectfully
request that docket entry 4 — the motion to unseal — be
made publicly accessible immediately, and that this press
request and any order on that motion be publicly docketed
as well.
Watch this site.
Last week Inner City Press wrote to NDIL
Magistrate Judges Maria G. Valdez a bout the case before
her, US v. Suppressed, 1:24-mc-00319:
"The pattern of filings is as follows: a
sealed motion and order were entered on May 6, 2024;
renewed on October 31, 2024; renewed again on May 1, 2025;
renewed again on October 28, 2025; and most recently
renewed on April 24 and 28, 2026. Publicly, every docket
entry is sealed."
The response was that the request
will not (yet?) be considered, it must be "filed on the
public docket" --
"Judge Valdez does not respond to ex parte
communications. Any requests for judicial action must be
made by motion on the public
docket. Michelle
D. Mills Law Clerk Chambers of Magistrate
Judge Maria Valdez "
First, the docket is entirely sealed, with
no name or public items. Two, only a lawyer admitted in
the NDIL with with filings privileges can file a request
to unseal. Pro hac vice costs hundreds of dollars. This is
not an acceptable system for public access to the courts.
In the interim, Inner City Press is
seeking Illinois pro bono counsel to make the filing. But
in the long run, this is unacceptable court opacity and,
it seems, lack of accountability.
Inner City Press will not rest. Watch
this site.
