State Newsroom v. City of Jersey City

The issue in this case is whether New Jersey’s expungement statute bars public access to an internal affairs report concerning a police officer, because the report contains facts or documents common to expunged criminal records.

The ACLU of New Jersey filed an amicus brief in the Appellate Division concerning police transparency and access to court records. The trial court in the case determined that New Jersey’s expungement statute barred public access to a police lieutenant’s internal affairs report because the report contained facts or documents that also appeared in expunged criminal records. The court referred to the expungement statute as a “concrete wall” that prevented it from reaching the balancing test that governs disclosure under the common law right of access. We argued that this approach was improper and produced a mistaken outcome. The common law right of access is not susceptible to categorical exceptions and all records requests must be analyzed according to the balancing test. Accordingly, the trial court should have weighed the public’s interest in disclosure of the report against the city’s confidentiality interests first—considering, within that framework, the impact of the adjacent expungement statute. We argued the public’s interest in disclosure overwhelmed the city’s interests in confidentiality, including those that may emanate from expungement.

We also argued that the trial court committed a second error in sealing the case docket without finding that the need for secrecy substantially outweighed the strong presumption in favor of public access to judicial proceedings and records. The trial court was obligated to apply this analysis to each document and to consider narrower means of vindicating any specific and substantiated privacy needs before drawing a curtain across the entire case.

On August 20, 2024, the Appellate Division issued an opinion in which it determined that the trial court judge had not undertaken the appropriate analysis required by Rivera and remanded: “the judge shall review the IA report in camera, and if he satisfied the factors have been met to warrant disclosure, he should make the appropriate redactions to protect legitimate confidential information and release the information.” The court held that “[i]t follows from our analysis of the expungement statute, and the want of findings under the common law factors, that the judge should not have sealed the entire file without finding good cause to overcome the strong presumption of public access to court records.”

On October 25, 2024, Defendants appealed the decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court.