Newspapers: Unseal Aaron Hernandez documents
FALL RIVER — GateHouse Media, the publisher of The Herald News, The Enterprise, Taunton Daily Gazette and The Patriot Ledger, is requesting that documents related to a juror possibly being exposed to “significant extraneous information” during the Aaron Hernandez trial be unsealed.
Hernandez’s attorneys on Monday will file two motions and accompanying memoranda and affidavits under seal, and they will request that Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh keep those documents impounded at least until oral arguments during a June 12 motion hearing in Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River.
In a motion requesting that those documents remain impounded, the defense team says privacy is needed because public disclosure of the allegations against the unidentified juror “would seriously compromise the integrity and effectiveness of the fact-finding process.”
However, the public has a right to review post-verdict proceedings, including information about a juror possibly being exposed to information outside of the courtroom, according to GateHouse Media attorneys Michael J. Grygiel and Zachary C. Kleinsasser.
In a letter to Garsh, dated June 3, notifying her that GateHouse Media will be filing a formal motion opposing the defense team’s request, Grygiel and Kleinsasser said state and federal case law supports the newspapers’ argument that, barring “some compelling justification,” all proceedings related to the juror issue and the underlying court records must be made public.
“Hernandez’s wholesale sealing of post-verdict motion papers in this instance has effectively reversed the public’s presumptive rights of public access to judicial documents,” the attorneys wrote.
Grygiel and Kleinsasser also note a 1990 case, Globe Newspaper Company v. Commonwealth, in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that there is no principled basis for affording greater confidentiality to post-trial documents and proceedings than what is given to pretrial matters. That case concerned information relating to a juror’s alleged exposure to extraneous matter during trial that may have prejudiced the jury’s deliberations.
Garsh, at that time an attorney in private practice, represented the Globe Newspaper Co. in the 1990 case.
Hernandez, 25, the former New England Patriots star tight end, was convicted of first-degree murder and related firearm and ammunition charges on April 15 following a 10-week trial at Bristol County Superior Court. The jury deliberated for about 36 hours before returning a guilty verdict on first-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Hernandez’s attorneys are appealing the conviction, and have filed a motion requesting that Garsh overturn the jury’s verdict. The defense team said the jury relied on “improper speculation, conjecture and guesswork” to convict Hernandez. Hernandez’s lawyers also said “no reasonable jury” could have determined that Hernandez murdered or intended to kill Odin Lloyd, a Dorchester man who was shot to death in the North Attleborough Industrial Park on June 17, 2013. Garsh has not ruled on that motion.
The court experienced some issues with jurors during the Hernandez trial, which began Jan. 29 and continued through 39 days of testimony. During the trial, Garsh dismissed three jurors; two for undisclosed reasons and a third, a woman, who allegedly did not disclose during the prescreening process that she had discussed the case and attended Patriots home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.
Because the pertinent documents are now sealed, it is unknown what information the unidentified juror may have been exposed to during the trial, as well as how Hernandez’s attorneys learned about the possible violation. Throughout the trial, and during a joint interview with reporters after the verdict, the jurors said they had abided by the judge’s instructions not to read about or discuss the case.
In their motion, defense attorneys James L. Sultan and Michael K. Fee said keeping the documents sealed from public view will maximize the likelihood of “discovering the truth in this matter” if the witnesses to be questioned do not know in advance what the are going to be asked or the specific nature of the allegations which have been made.
But sealing any documents, Grygiel and Kleinsasser argue, requires a “stringent standard” and a detailed, on-the-record finding of facts by the court to warrant any sealing of documents. The GateHouse Media attorneys say the court must first consider less restrictive means, including redacting some portions of documents. They note a federal case where the courts ruled that to delay or postpone disclosure of judicial documents and proceedings “undermines the benefit of public scrutiny and may have the same result as complete suppression.”
Wrote Grygiel and Kleinsaser: “Finally, we respectfully submit that the perception of judicial integrity is enhanced when court records are readily accessible to, not secreted away from, the public.”
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