LOS ANGELES_A federal judge Tuesday lifted a controversial order requiring the Los Angeles Times to remove information in an article about a former Glendale police detective accused of working with the Mexican mafia.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter had issued the order Saturday after The Times published information on its web site about a plea agreement between prosecutors and the former detective. The agreement had been sealed by the court but was placed in a court database of documents accessible to the public.
At a hearing Tuesday morning, Walter said he was initially unsure whether the newspaper had legally obtained access to the agreement but after conducting an investigation concluded the document was posted on the court's database as the result of a clerical error.
The sealed agreement was publicly available for more than 31 hours from Thursday afternoon to Friday night, the judge said.
He said he had issued his extraordinary order over the weekend out of concern for the former detective's and his family's safety.
"I'm concerned about somebody's life. And if I err, I'm going to err on the side of protecting this defendant," he said.
He added: "I've always been a strong proponent of the First Amendment and believe in public access to this courtroom."
Walter said the paper was free to publish the information subject to his earlier order, but said he hoped The Times "will use some restraint ... in light of potential consequences."
An attorney for John Saro Balian, the former detective, told the judge that he knew the law gives weight to the freedom of speech but said the risks to his client were grave enough to justify putting a restriction on the media.
"They took an irresponsible action in placing details of his plea agreement in public," attorney Craig Missakian told the judge at Tuesday's hearing. "With no good reason, other than they had it and they wanted to do it."
Kelli Sager, an attorney for The Times, said no matter how the information was obtained by the reporter, the law was abundantly clear that the media cannot be prevented from publishing it or ordered to delete information it had already made public. She said Balian's attorney was misleading in his filing to the judge, implying The Times reporter may have illegally obtained the information when he knew it had been publicly available on the court's web site.
She pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the media to publish the Pentagon Papers, which was leaked to reporters and contained highly classified and sensitive information. Sager said the case showed the incredibly high bar for "prior restraint," preventing the media from publication.
The Times initially complied with Walter's Saturday order, deleting paragraphs relating to the sealed information, but challenged it. After Walter lifted his order on Tuesday, the original version of the article was restored on the paper's web site.
The newspaper also sought review Sunday night in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Walter asked attorneys to immediately notify the higher court of his vacated order, stopping the appellate case.
On behalf of 59 media organizations, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a petition before the 9th Circuit late Monday proposing to file a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of The Times.
Those supporting The Times include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, the major network news broadcasters and other prominent media throughout the nation.
Constitutional scholars who have followed the case said it was rare for a judge to issue the kind of order that Walter handed down. They also said the news media cannot lawfully be ordered to excise information they have lawfully obtained and published except in exceptional circumstances.
The scholars pointed to a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling finding that it was unconstitutional for a Florida weekly to be punished for publishing the name of a rape victim, which is barred under Florida law.
The woman had sued the paper and won damages, but the high court reversed the jury verdict and award because the newspaper truthfully published information released by the government.
