Opinion ID: 3010393
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Do the Newspapers Have a Right of Access

Text: to the Briefs and Hearing?
The longstanding rules preserving grand jury secrecy are well established. See Douglas Oil, 441 U.S. 211; In re Grand Jury Matter (Catania), 682 F.2d 61, 63 (3d Cir. 1982). As the Supreme Court explained in Douglas Oil, [s]ince the 17th century, grand jury proceedings have been closed to the public, and records of such proceedings have been kept from the public eye. 441 U.S. at 218 n.9. The secrecy of grand jury proceedings is a necessary incident to the proper functioning of the grand jury system. The Court has: noted several distinct interests served by safeguarding the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings. First, if preindictment proceedings were made public, many prospective witnesses would be hesitant to come forward voluntarily, knowing that those against whom they testify would be aware of that testimony. Moreover, witnesses who appeared before the grand jury would be less likely to testify fully and frankly, as they would be open to retribution as well as inducements. There also would be the risk that those about to be indicted would flee, or would try to influence individual jurors to vote against indictment. Finally, by preserving the secrecy of the proceedings, we assure that persons who are accused but _________________________________________________________________ 10. The government attached a sealed affidavit to this effect in the papers it filed in the district court. 14 exonerated by the grand jury will not be held up to public ridicule. Id. at 218-19. Moreover, these interests in grand jury secrecy, although reduced, are not eliminated merely because the grand jury has ended its activities. Id. at 222.11 Thus, Douglas Oil implicitly makes clear that grand jury proceedings are not subject to a First Amendment right of access under the test of experience and logic. Historically, such proceedings have been closed to the public. Moreover, public access to grand jury proceedings would hinder, rather than further, the efficient functioning of the proceedings. Not only are grand jury proceedings not subject to any First Amendment right of access, but third parties can gain access to grand jury matters only under limited circumstances. Even after the grand jury has concluded its proceedings, a private party petitioning for access to grand jury materials must show that the need for [access] outweighs the public interest in secrecy, and . . . the burden of demonstrating this balance rests upon the private party seeking disclosure. Id. at 223. Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e) is intended to preserve the tradition of grand jury secrecy, creating a general rule of confidentiality for all matters occurring before the grand jury. Rule 6(e) applies to anything which may reveal what occurred before the grand jury. Catania, 682 F.2d at 63. The core of this rule is an obligation on all persons who are present at grand jury proceedings not to disclose any matters disclosed at such proceedings.12 Any knowing _________________________________________________________________ 11. In this regard, we note that it is not clear from the record whether the grand jury proceedings that are potentially implicated are ongoing. Because even completed grand jury proceedings and records are presumptively secret, determining whether the grand jury here has completed its investigation is not necessary to the questions before us. 12. Rule 6(d) sets out who may be present at grand jury proceedings: Attorneys for the government, the witness under examination, interpreters when needed and, for the purpose of taking the evidence, a stenographer or operator of a recording device may be present while the grand jury is in session, but no person other than the jurors may be present while the grand jury is deliberating or voting. 15 violation of that obligation may be punished as contempt of court. Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2). Rule 6(e) provides only narrow exceptions to the general rule of grand jury secrecy. For example, under Rule 6(e)(3)(A), grand jury secrets may be disclosed without a court order to certain government personnel for purposes limited to the federal criminal law enforcement. If such a disclosure is made, [a]n attorney for the government shall promptly provide the district court, before which was impaneled the grand jury whose material has been so disclosed, with the names of the persons to whom such disclosure was made, and shall certify that the attorney has advised such persons of their obligation of secrecy under this rule. Id. 6(e)(3)(B). Most important for purposes of this case, any third parties seeking access to grand jury materials must file a petition in the district court where the grand jury convened. Id. 6(e)(3)(D). Under Douglas Oil, as we noted above, such parties have the burden of showing that their need for access outweighs the public interest in the secrecy of the grand jury materials. To preserve the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, the district court must seal certain hearings and records, although not grand jury proceedings themselves, when access to those hearings and records would jeopardize grand jury secrecy. Under Rule 6(e)(5), [s]ubject to any right to an open hearing in contempt proceedings, the court shall order a hearing on matters affecting a grand jury proceeding to be closed to the extent necessary to prevent disclosure of matters occurring before a grand jury (emphasis added).13 Similarly, under Rule 6(e)(6), [r]ecords, orders and subpoenas relating to grand jury proceedings shall be kept under seal to the extent and for such time as _________________________________________________________________ 13. To the extent that contempt proceedings may be held in open court, the right to public access is a right held by the putative contemnor, not by the public. The contemnor must request open proceedings. Moreover, there is no requirement that the entire proceeding, including the questions that the contemnor refused to answer, be made public. All that must be accessible to the public, upon the contemnor's request, is the final stage of contempt proceedings. Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 618 (1960). 16 is necessary to prevent disclosure of matters occurring before a grand jury (emphasis added). It is clear to us that the briefs and the hearings here are not themselves matters occurring before the grand jury. They may, nonetheless, be subject to Rule 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6) governing the closure of hearings affecting and papers relating to grand jury proceedings. As the Second Circuit has recently explained, [t]he plain language of the Rule shows that Congress intended for its confidentiality provisions to cover matters beyond those actually occurring before the grand jury. In re Grand Jury Subpoena (Doe No. 4 v. Doe No. 1), 103 F.3d 234, 237 (2d Cir. 1996). Rather than according secrecy only to the grand jury proceedings themselves, the rules provide a presumption of secrecy to all proceedings that affect grand jury proceedings. Concomitantly, not only are grand jury materials themselves to be kept secret, but so are all materials that relate to grand jury proceedings. The newspapers urge a narrow reading of those provisions, recognizing that, if the briefs and hearing are subject to Rules 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6), there is clearly no First Amendment right of access to them. Not only would there be no presumptive right of access to them, but if the newspapers wanted access to the briefs and the hearing, they would have the burden of showing that their need for access outweighed the public interest in grand jury secrecy, a burden the newspapers would be unlikely to carry. The newspapers contend that proceedings regarding whether the government improperly disclosed grand jury material do not affect or relate to a grand jury proceeding, in the common sense of those terms. According to the newspapers, any grand jury proceedings can continue uninterrupted and unaffected by the proceedings before the district court. We disagree. Grand jury proceedings are interrupted and affected if matters occurring before the grand jury are disclosed. That is because, as the Douglas Oil Court explained, the disclosure of what has occurred or is occurring before the grand jury undermines the proper functioning of grand jury proceedings. Thus, Rules 6(e)(5) and Rule 6(e)(6) require a district court to seal any hearing or records that would 17 publicly disclose matters occurring before the grand jury. See id. at 238 ([A] proceeding is related to or affects a grand jury investigation if it would reveal matters actually or potentially occurring before the grand jury.); 1 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 106, at 250 (1982) (The rule of secrecy applies . . . to anything that might tend to reveal what happened in the grand jury room.). In other words, since it is indisputable that a court must seal Rule 6(e) material, then a court may also seal proceedings or papers if grand jury material would be disclosed during the proceedings. The Advisory Committee notes to Rule 6 clearly support this conclusion. That commentary states that Rule 6(e)(5) make[s] it clear that certain hearings which would reveal matters which have previously occurred before a grand jury or are likely to occur before a grand jury with respect to a pending or ongoing investigation must be conducted in camera in whole or in part in order to prevent public disclosure of such secret information. Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 6, 1983 Amendment. The Notes then go on to provide several examples of such a hearing. For instance, when a third party petitions a court for access to particular grand jury materials under subdivision (e)(3)(D), a court might be justified in sealing any related hearings for it will at least sometimes be necessary to consider and assess some of the `matters occurring before the grand jury' in order to decide the disclosure issue. Id. In other words, a court should close a hearing to decide whether disclosure is warranted if that hearing would necessarily disclose grand jury matters.14
Grand Jury Secrecy and the Briefs and Hearing We turn, therefore, to the critical question whether the briefs and hearing to which the newspapers seek access are _________________________________________________________________ 14. The commentary provides two additional examples of hearings at which information about a particular grand jury proceeding might need to be discussed: those at which the question is whether to grant a grand jury witness immunity or whether to order a grand jury witness to comply fully with the terms of a subpoena directed to him. 18 subject to a First Amendment right of access. We acknowledge at the outset the force of the newspapers' contention that the proceedings before the district court in essence concern post-trial allegations of government misconduct in a criminal case. Moreover, we agree with the newspapers that there is a significant public interest in gaining access to proceedings that investigate allegations of government misconduct. Nevertheless, even if the proceedings at issue concern possible government misconduct (so that the logic prong of the Press-Enterprise II test, see supra p.11-13, is likely satisfied), there is no presumptive First Amendment right of access if the hearing, and related papers must be sealed under Rule 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6) because they affect or relate to a grand jury proceeding. In other words, if the district court seals a proceeding or brief because it would disclose grand jury matters, there is no First Amendment right of access to it even if it also concerns possible improper actions by government officials. Thus, to determine whether the newspapers are correct that there is a presumptive right of access to the hearing and briefs, we must determine whether they will disclose grand jury matters so that they affect or relate to grand jury proceedings within the meaning of Rule 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6). We conclude that they do. Although the ultimate issue to be decided by the district court is whether attorneys for the government committed any wrongdoing by publicly releasing the sentencing memorandum, this question cannot be resolved without the district court's determining whether that sentencing memorandum includes Rule 6(e) material. Thus, the focus of the proceedings before the district court is on the question whether the disputed material contained in the sentencing memorandum is in fact grand jury material. In this proceeding, grand jury matters may potentially be disclosed in two respects. First, as the government has represented in its brief and at oral argument, in order to decide the matter, the district court will have to consider previously undisclosed material that, the government represents, contains grand jury secrets. According to the parties opposing access, these 19 previously undisclosed materials have been submitted to the district court so that it can determine in an informed manner whether the sentencing memorandum contained Rule 6(e) material. At this juncture, since the government is in the unique position of knowing what transpired before the grand jury, we must accept the representation that undisclosed grand jury secrets will come out during the proceeding. Second, the aspects of the sentencing memorandum itself that GTECH, Smith, and D'Andrea contend are entitled to secrecy under Rule 6(e) will necessarily be disclosed during the proceedings, as the purpose of the proceedings is to determine the status of that material under Rule 6(e). The district court must ensure that any such material remains secret, for, otherwise, potentially confidential material would be publicly disseminated before the court can decide whether those materials are actually secret. The risk that the briefs and hearing will disclose grand jury matters is significant enough that closure is warranted. Cf. Doe No. 4, 103 F.3d at 238 (We believe that a hearing on Doe 4's motion [asserting that it had been a victim of illegal surveillance and demanding that the government disclose any such surveillance] poses a significant risk of disclosing information which has occurred or which may occur before the grand jury. Because the government has not yet confirmed or denied the investigation, we can only speculate as to the precise nature of the risk.). As the foregoing discussion demonstrates, the briefs and hearing will necessarily reveal grand jury material. We therefore conclude that the briefs and hearing to which the newspapers seek access are afforded secrecy under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6). Not only was the district court justified in sealing them, it was required to do so absent a showing of an overriding interest. As such, there is no presumptive First Amendment right of access thereto. For this reason, our inquiry ends here, and we do not reach the question whether the district court made particularized findings that the need for closure outweighed the interest in public access, as is required under Antar, 38 F.3d at 1359, when a presumptive First Amendment right of access is established. 20 Several additional considerations support our conclusion that there is no presumptive First Amendment right of access to the briefs or to the hearing. GTECH and the other parties opposing access point out, quite convincingly, that examining material in camera is a common method used by courts to make decisions without undermining the secret or privileged nature of certain material. We have approved that method in several contexts, including the grand jury. Recently, in In re Grand Jury, 103 F.3d 1140 (3d Cir. 1997), for example, we held that the district court did not err in conducting an ex parte, in camera hearing to determine whether a challenged subpoena must be complied within a case claiming parent-child privilege. We stated that [e]x parte in camera hearings have been held proper in order to preserve the ongoing interest in grand jury secrecy. The secrecy of the grand jury proceedings in the present matter might have been compromised by divulging the specific questions that the government intended to ask during the daughter's testimony. Id. at 1145 (citations omitted). Courts have also approved of examining material in camera in order to preserve the potentially privileged or secret nature of that information when faced with a dispute about whether that material is in fact privileged or secret, as in this case. For example, we have used that method to determine whether certain documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. See, e.g., Kelly v. Ford Motor Co., 107 F.3d 954 (3d Cir. 1997). Similarly, the Supreme Court has endorsed the practice of holding in camera proceedings for determining whether the government can withhold documents from discovery based on a claimed government privilege. See, e.g., Kerr v. United States District Court of the Northern District of California, 426 U.S. 394 (1976). In a related vein, it is clear that the district court properly took steps to preserve the subject matter of the dispute pending its determination whether that subject matter should be secret. Faced with a bona fide claim that 6(e) material was disclosed in the sentencing memorandum, the court prevented further disclosures of that material, thereby preserving the status quo, while the parties 21 briefed the question and the court brought them in for a hearing. The district court would have been in an untenable position if the newspapers had a right of access to the proceedings. The very purpose of the proceedings is to determine whether the sentencing memorandum contained Rule 6(e) material. If the district court made that determination in a public proceeding, it would further disseminate the potential secrets in doing so. This would be an unfortunate result indeed if the district court ultimately determined that the memorandum in fact contained grand jury secrets.15 _________________________________________________________________ 15. Because we conclude that the district court did not err in sealing the briefs and the hearing, we need not reach the question whether Fed. R. Crim. P. 32, which governs the preparation of presentence investigation reports (PSR), would have permitted the district court to do the same. The district court, in sealing the briefs and hearing, relied almost entirely on Rule 6(e). Although most of the arguments with respect to Rule 32 made by the parties opposing access have to do with the question whether the district court properly sealed the sentencing memorandum, which we have held is moot, whether information contained in a government sentencing memorandum is confidential is still a live issue to the extent that the briefs and the hearing might reveal some of that information. The parties opposing access to the briefs and hearing make a number of Rule 32 based arguments in support of the district court's decision to seal the briefs and the hearing. First, they contend that the sentencing memorandum (and by extension, the briefs and the hearing) disclosed (or will disclose) certain sensitive information that Rule 32(b)(5) requires probation officers to exclude from the PSRs. Second, they submit that the sentencing memorandum (and again by extension, the briefs and ultimately the hearing) disclosed (or will disclose) presentence investigation material in violation of Rule 32(b)(6), which governs the obligations of the parties during the presentence investigation process. More generally, the parties opposing access point to case law that has held that PSRs are not subject to any public right of access, unless the party seeking access can demonstrate an interest in disclosure that outweighs the interest in the confidentiality of the report. See United States v. Corbitt, 879 F.2d 224, 228 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v. Schlette, 842 F.2d 1574, 1579 (9th Cir. 1988); United States v. McKnight, 771 F.2d 388, 390 (8th Cir. 1985); United States v. Santarelli, 729 F.2d 1388, 1390 (11th Cir. 1984); United States v. Charmer Indus., 711 F.2d 1164, 1176 (2d Cir. 1983). Even though Rule 32 itself does not deal with 22
and Hold a Two-Part Hearing? The newspapers concede that they have no right of access to grand jury material as such. They contend, however, that the district court would only be justified in sealing the briefs and the hearing in their entirety if the court made particularized findings that the hearing and briefs would concern only grand jury material. In other words, the newspapers insist that they seek access only to _________________________________________________________________ disclosure of the report to third parties, a number of courts have reasoned that, in addition to the fact that PSRs have traditionally been confidential and only made available to the defendant in recent decades, public disclosure . . . of the presentence report . . . would constitute a positive hindrance of the sentencing process and ongoing criminal investigations. Corbitt, 879 F.2d at 229. We ourselves have observed that [t]here is a general presumption that the courts will not grant third parties access to the presentence reports of other individuals. United States v. Blanco, 884 F.2d 1577, 1578 (3d Cir. 1988). Based on this case law, the parties opposing access contend that the newspapers do not have a presumptive right of access to the sentencing memorandum, or to the briefs or hearing, which might disclose the information contained in the PSR. As they point out, sentencing memoranda typically include the same classes of sensitive information as are included in presentence reports, such as criminal history and characteristics, and not infrequently, as in this case, allegations of criminal conduct against uncharged individuals. There is considerable force to this argument. There are, of course, countervailing considerations. In the wake of the revolution in criminal sentencing spawned by the Sentencing Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq., and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which have largely transformed sentencing into an adversary proceeding during which the sentencing judge makes record fact findings about the material sentencing factors, it would seem that significant portions of the PSR need (and should) no longer be confidential. But even if that were so, the matters at issue here may well be outside the ambit of any such precept (assuming it should be adopted). We leave this question to the district court. If the court determines, upon resolving the 6(e) question, that all, or aspects, of the briefs and the transcripts of the hearing should be disclosed to the public, it should also consider whether Rule 32 or related case law establishing the confidentiality of PSRs would prohibit the disclosure of that material. 23 the nonsecret portions of the proceeding before the district court. They make two related contentions. First, they point out that the district court made no findings that secret grand jury material would actually be considered during the proceedings. Second, they point out that both Rule 6(e)(5) and 6(e)(6) specifically provide that the hearing and materials can be closed only to the extent necessary to prevent disclosure of matters occurring before a grand jury. According to the newspapers, even if the district court can justifiably seal part of the briefs and the hearing, the court must exercise this authority narrowly, and only seal the particular aspects of the briefs and the hearing that warrant secrecy. Under these circumstances, the newspapers contend, the district court erred in sealing the briefs and the hearing in their entirety and should, instead, have redacted the briefs and held a two-part hearing. We disagree. The government has represented that material it concedes to contain grand jury secrets will be disclosed in order to aid the district court's deliberations. That virtually concludes the issue. But we would have to reject the newspapers' contention even without this representation. The briefs and the hearing to which the newspapers seek access concern the exact issue that the newspapers want the district court to determine now: whether 6(e) material is implicated. More specifically, although the newspapers seek access only to the aspects of the proceedings that the district court determines to be nonsecret, the district court simply cannot determine what material is secret and what can be disclosed to the public without determining whether the sentencing memorandum contains Rule 6(e) material. Yet that decision, in turn, cannot be made without the benefit of the briefs and in particular, without the benefit of oral argument. At such a hearing, according to the parties opposing access, the parties will make legal arguments about the scope of Rule 6(e), as well as explain the fabric of the grand jury proceedings at issue to the district court. It is not until the district court determines what constitutes grand jury material in the context of this case, which it can do only at the conclusion of the proceedings before it, that it will know what aspects of the briefs, the hearing, and the sentencing memorandum to make public, if any. 24 The newspapers have expressed concern that a district court would seal proceedings that should otherwise be open based on a mere allegation that grand jury secrets have been or will be disclosed. They submit that this is of particular concern in a case such as this where the parties claiming that a 6(e) violation has occurred were not present during the grand jury investigation, and, therefore, have no basis for knowing what exactly constitutes 6(e) material in this particular case. We conclude, however, that GTECH and the other parties have made at least a colorable showing that 6(e) materials were implicated, and as noted above, the U.S. Attorney was particularly forthcoming. Moreover, the district court made adequate findings in this regard. It stated that the very reason [the briefs are] sealed is there may be materials in there which affect Rule 6(e). Even if it were possible for the district court to identify material that potentially implicates Rule 6(e) in advance and to restrict access only to that particular material without the benefit of oral argument, we would not require the district court to do so. The newspapers would, in essence, have the district court conduct a revolving door hearing to which the media would be let in and then excluded from time to time (or minute to minute) depending on whether grand jury material (or putative grand jury material) was under consideration. But courts cannot conduct their business that way, and we will not tie the hands of the district court in this fashion. Under these circumstances, requiring access to some aspects of the hearing will be cumbersome, impractical, and inefficient. The same would be true of requiring the district court to redact the briefs. The district court has informed the parties that it will disclose all nonsecret aspects of the sentencing memorandum, the briefs, and the hearing as soon as it determines which aspects of those papers and proceedings are secret. Under the circumstances we have described, that access is enough to satisfy any right of access that the newspapers may have to the nonsecret aspects of the proceedings. 25 D. Is the Previously Disclosed Grand Jury Material Here Entitled to Any Protection? The newspapers also contend that there is a First Amendment right of access to the briefs and the hearing in this case because the First Amendment guarantees access to grand jury or other confidential matters to the extent that that information has already been publicly disclosed. They hang their hat on the fact that the sentencing memorandum has already been disclosed to the public, and reason that what the parties opposing access seek to protect is no longer secret. We reject this argument. As we have already noted, the proceedings before the district court will involve the consideration of previously undisclosed grand jury material. Therefore, even if we were to assume that any confidential material contained in the sentencing memorandum is no longer entitled to protection, the proceedings, if public, will, for the reasons we have described, disclose additional confidential material. Since we have held that the district court is not required to conduct a revolving door hearing, in which it would seal only those portions of the proceedings that might reveal grand jury secrets, the district court did not err in sealing the briefs and the hearing even if the information contained in the sentencing memorandum is no longer entitled to protection. Moreover, we cannot agree with the newspapers' contention that grand jury material or putative grand jury material, once disclosed, even if inadvertently, is no longer subject to the protections of Rule 6(e). At bottom, it is clear to us that a court is simply not powerless, in the face of an unlawful disclosure of grand jury secrets, to prevent all further disclosures by the government of those same jury secrets. In other words, even if grand jury secrets are publicly disclosed, they may still be entitled to at least some protection from disclosure. The Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Sells Engineering, Inc., 463 U.S. 418 (1983), is instructive on this point. In that case, lawyers in the Justice Department's Civil Division had access to certain grand jury materials for two years before the Ninth Circuit held that those lawyers 26 were not entitled to the materials under Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(i), which governs disclosure to other government lawyers. The Supreme Court noted that the case was not moot, despite government protestations to the contrary:  `The controversy here is still a live one. . . . Each day this order remains effective the veil of secrecy is lifted higher by disclosure to additional personnel and by the continued access of those to whom the materials have already been disclosed. We cannot restore the secrecy that has already been lost but we can grant partial relief by preventing further disclosure.'  Id. at 423 n.6 (quoting In re Grand Jury Investigation No. 78-184 (Sells, Inc.), 642 F.2d 1184, 118788 (9th Cir. 1981)); see also In the Matter of Special March 1981 Grand Jury, 753 F.2d 575, 577 (7th Cir. 1985) (If the Court orders such disclosure erroneously, we suppose both that an injured person can complain by filing . . . a petition with the court that ordered disclosure and that the court has inherent power to issue an appropriate curative order . . . . We do not think Congress meant to leave the courts powerless to correct such errors. (citations omitted)); United States v. Nix, 21 F.3d 347, 350 (9th Cir. 1994) (We faced a somewhat similar situation in [Sells Engineering]. . . . We acknowledged that secrecy could not be restored, but held that the appeal was not moot because issues relating to future disclosure needed to be addressed.).16 _________________________________________________________________ 16. The cases relied on by the newspapers on this point are inapposite. First, they cite us to In re Charlotte Observer, 882 F.2d 850 (4th Cir. 1989) (Charlotte Observer I), in which the Fourth Circuit reversed an order of the district court sealing proceedings relating to a change of venue motion in a well-publicized criminal case. The district court concluded that closure was necessary in order to prevent republication of the prejudicial pre-trial publicity. The Fourth Circuit disagreed, stating [w]here closure is wholly inefficacious to prevent a perceived harm, that alone suffices to make it constitutionally impermissible. Id. at 855. Unlike the case before us, however, Charlotte Observer I involved only the republication of matters of public record. As such, the court found there was a presumptive right of access to the proceedings, and the only issue before it was whether the defendants' interest in closure was sufficient. Moreover, in In re Charlotte Observer, 921 F.2d 47 (4th Cir. 1990) (Charlotte Observer II), the same court reversed an order of the district 27 We acknowledge that the circumstances of this case are different from those before the Supreme Court in Sells Engineering because the potential grand jury secrets disclosed here were disseminated to members of the public, rather than to certain, identifiable government lawyers and their staffs. The order entered by the district court in this case cannot effectively bar further dissemination of any potential grand jury secrets by members of the public who possess the sentencing memorandum.17 Nevertheless, this difference in the degree of disclosure does not change the result in this case. Although the district court could not prevent the newspapers from publishing the sentencing memorandum once they came into possession of it, the court properly prevented further government disclosures of the putative grand jury secrets contained in the sentencing memorandum to additional parties. Even if the dissemination by members of the public continues, the _________________________________________________________________ court enjoining two reporters from publishing confidential information that was inadvertently revealed in open court. The court noted that [o]n the present record . . . `the cat is out of the bag.' The district court did not close the hearing and the disclosure was made in the courtroom, a particularly public forum. Once announced to the world, the information lost its secret characteristic, an aspect that could not be restored by the issuance of an injunction to two reporters. Id. at 50. Unlike Charlotte Observer I, Charlotte Observer II did potentially implicate secret grand jury material. The information that was inadvertently disclosed was the name of a lawyer who was the target of an ongoing grand jury investigation. Despite the court's language, however, its holding was based in the law of prior restraint: the district court's order barred the reporters from publishing information that they had obtained lawfully. The order, therefore, clearly ran afoul of the line of Supreme Court prior restraint cases, such as Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. District Court, 430 U.S. 308 (1977), and Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976). In the case before us, in contrast, the district court's order does not bar the newspapers from publishing the sentencing memorandum in their possession. 17. Nor could the court enter an order barring parties in possession of the sentencing memorandum from passing the memorandum onto other parties. Under prior restraint law, orders prohibiting the media from publishing information already in its possession are strongly disfavored. See, e.g., Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. District Court, 430 U.S. 308 (1977); Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976). 28 order barring further disclosure of any secret grand jury material will at least narrow that dissemination.