## Facts

- Michael Joseph Jackson was indicted in Santa Barbara County on charges including child molestation amid extraordinary worldwide media attention.
- To limit pretrial publicity and protect fair-trial and investigatory interests, the trial court sealed multiple categories of records, including the grand jury transcript, the indictment, and search-warrant affidavits.
- A coalition of media organizations moved to unseal these materials, asserting constitutional and common-law rights of public access and arguing the sealing orders lacked adequate findings and were overbroad.
- The trial court largely denied the motions, while selectively unsealing some information over time.
- By the time of appellate argument, much of the sought information had become publicly available through partial unsealing and internet leaks, but the appellate court evaluated the sealing decisions as of the time they were made to provide guidance for similar disputes.

## Issues

1. Whether sealing the grand jury transcript, search-warrant materials, the indictment, and related court records violated the public and press right of access under the First Amendment and related access doctrines.
2. Whether the trial court properly balanced access rights against fair-trial, investigatory, and third-party interests and narrowly tailored sealing through redaction or partial/staged unsealing.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal largely affirmed, holding the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sealing the grand jury transcript, search-warrant affidavits, and related materials.
- The court held the indictment could not remain entirely sealed; it ordered the indictment unsealed except for properly redacted portions identifying unindicted alleged coconspirators.
- The matter was remanded with directions to implement the required partial unsealing of the indictment.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal proceedings and many associated records are presumptively open to the public and press, and restrictions on access require careful judicial justification.
- A defendant’s fair-trial rights and the integrity of ongoing investigations can constitute compelling interests supporting temporary or partial sealing when reasonable alternatives are inadequate.
- Sealing orders must be narrowly tailored; courts should prefer redaction, partial sealing, and staged unsealing over blanket secrecy where feasible.
- Appellate review is deferential when a trial court makes a case-specific balancing decision and employs methods aimed at maintaining that balance in changing pretrial-publicity conditions.
- Identifying information about unindicted alleged coconspirators may be sealed or redacted to protect substantial reputational and privacy interests, even when core charging information must be public.

## Conclusion

The court upheld most record-sealing measures as a permissible effort to protect fair-trial and investigatory interests in an unusually publicized prosecution, but required disclosure of the indictment’s nonprotected content, allowing only targeted redactions for unindicted alleged coconspirators.


People v. Jackson, 128 Cal. App. 4th 1009, 27 Cal. Rptr. 3d 596 (Ct. App. 2005)