FEDERAL COURT, July 29 – Colorado
remains the one federal district that posts every motion
to seal on its own public website with a deadline to
object, and it remains the district where Inner City Press
has had its most success this year.
But three cases now sitting side by side on
Colorado's docket show a system that works only when
someone keeps pushing, and where a single judge's
misreading of a local rule can undo the model
entirely. The good hearing, and the missing
follow-through. In Jones v. United Airlines, Magistrate
Judge N. Reid Neureiter first approved United's unopposed
motion to restrict its own summary judgment exhibits on
May 28, 2026 — the same day it was filed, before the
fourteen-day window for anyone to object had even run.
It took Inner City Press's timely
opposition, filed within that window, to bring the
question back before the Court. On June 24, after a
hearing at which "Mr. Matthew R. Lee from Inner City
Press" appeared alongside counsel for both sides, Judge
Neureiter reversed course: he sustained Inner City Press's
objections to restricting three sets of exhibits, and
denied both parties' sealing motions outright. Counsel
were ordered to file redacted, public versions by July 17,
2026. While becuase it was not put on ECF it did not
receive notice, the less redacted documents were dockets,
resulting in an Inner City Press scoop.
The ill-informed ruling
Days later, in a different case, United
States v. Ba — a denaturalization matter in which the
government sought to restrict all ten exhibits to its
complaint the day it was filed — Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y.
Chung denied Inner City Press's objection without reaching
the merits at all, holding that the objection itself
violated D.C.COLO.LCivR 7.1(a) for failing to confer with
the government first.
The ruling did not explain how a non-party
press objector, asserting a public right of access
independent of either litigant, is meant to "confer" with
a party whose position is that the material should not be
public in the first place — nor did it grapple with the
timing problem: this Court, including in this very case,
has approved sealing motions the same day they were filed,
often before any deadline to object has run.
A conferral requirement applied to the
public is not a technicality; in practice, it can
foreclose timely objection altogether. Judge Chung's
substantive ruling on the underlying privacy question was
measured and time-limited — restriction only until
September 14, with real teeth requiring specificity in any
extension — and Inner City Press intends to let that
timeline run rather than fight the conferral point in that
case directly.
Criminal Case, conferral (in four days)
burden not imposed
Instead, the conferral question is being
tested in a third case, United States v. Torres, a money
laundering prosecution in which the government's own
motion to restrict recites textbook conferral:
"undersigned counsel has discussed this request to
restrict with counsel for Defendant Ritter. Counsel did
not object." That is what Rule 7.1(a) is for — two
parties, in an ongoing adversarial relationship, working
out a routine motion between themselves.
Inner City Press has filed an objection in
Torres to the government's motion to restrict both a
document and the brief explaining why it should be sealed
— without conferring with the government, and without
conferring with defendant Torres or his counsel either.
On July 29, this: Judge Regina M. Rodriguez
has ruled. The Court found that the government
"articulate[d] a sufficiently significant interest that
will justify continuing to override the presumption of
public access," citing United States v. Bacon, 950 F.3d
1286, 1293 (10th Cir. 2020), and held it met Local
Criminal Rule 47.1(c)'s requirements for both the
underlying document and the brief explaining why it should
be sealed. Inner City Press's objection was overruled;
both remain sealed. Unlike Bah, this is a ruling on the
merits, not a procedural dodge — the government was made
to show its interest, and a judge tested it, rather than
restricting on an unopposed motion nobody examined. That
is what testing sealing looks like: sometimes the seal
holds. The ruling also addressed if not clarified
the conferral question raised in Bah. In the United
Airlines case, there was no conferral, it was not
required. It is not possible in the short time frame
provided.
The Court wrote: "the Court notes but
need not address Mr. Lee's argument that D.C.COLO.LCivR
7.1(a) should not apply to a press objector, because this
is a criminal case and the Government has satisfied the
requirements under Rule 47.1(c)." Criminal restriction
motions run under a separate rule, 47.1(c), not the civil
conferral rule that tripped up the Ba objection — and this
Court, applying it, never faulted Inner City Press for
failing to confer. Note that in United Airlines, there was
no conferral and no problem, a hearing and unsealing
ordered.
Update: Inner City Press has objected to a
sealing in an SEC case which was approved, as in United
Airlines, during the time to object. So how is one
supposed to confer? Watch this site.
