Opinion ID: 182596
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Public Domain Doctrine

Text: PLN urges us to hold that, under the public domain doctrine, even if the records here are exempt they must nonetheless be released because they were previously introduced at the Sablans' trials. The public domain doctrine, a doctrine applied by the D.C. Circuit, comes into play once a court has concluded that a record falls within an exemption to disclosure under FOIA. It allows a court, in certain circumstances, to disregard that otherwise applicable exemption based on a prior public release of the requested materials. See Cottone v. Reno, 193 F.3d 550, 554 (D.C.Cir.1999). PLN relies primarily on Cottone v. Reno for its argument that the public domain doctrine overrides the application of any FOIA exemption when records are introduced as unsealed exhibits at a public trial. [6] 193 F.3d at 550. In Cottone, the D.C. Circuit held that materials normally immunized from disclosure under FOIA lose their protective cloak once disclosed and preserved in a permanent public record. Id. at 554. The justification for the D.C. Circuit's rule under FOIA's statutory framework, however, is critical to understanding when the doctrine applies. The D.C. Circuit explained that the logic of FOIA mandates that where information requested is truly public, then enforcement of an exemption cannot fulfill its purposes. Id. at 554 (internal quotation and citation omitted). In Cottone, the requester sought tape recordings of wiretapped conversations that had been introduced at a public trial. Id. at 552-53. Recordings obtained by wiretap may be withheld under FOIA Exemption 3, which protects records that must be withheld under another statutory provisionin Cottone, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Id. at 554. Once the tapes in Cottone were played at a public trial, the purpose of the Exemption 3 statute could no longer be fulfilled because the government had already revealed the intercepted information. See id. at 555. Importantly, there was no argument in Cottone that any additional interest attached to the tape recordings, which had already been disclosed and thus easily disseminated further. By contrast, the purpose of Exemption 7(C) in this case remains intact despite the government's use of the records at a public trial. The nature of the family's strong privacy interest in the photographs, video, and accompanying audio is distinct from information about what those images and recordings contain. The Sablans' conduct is already publicly known and written descriptions have been widely republished. Enforcement of Exemption 7(C) here would not protect any privacy interest that might exist merely in a description of the conduct. As discussed above, however, the actual images have been viewed by a limited number of individuals who were present in the courtroom at the time of the trials. Thus, enforcement of Exemption 7(C) can still protect the privacy interests of the family with respect to the images and recordings because they have not been disseminated. Aside from Cottone, every case cited by PLN in support of its reading of the public domain doctrine declines to apply the doctrine because of a failure of the plaintiff to demonstrate with specificity the information that is in the public domain. See, e.g., Davis v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 968 F.2d 1276, 1280 (D.C.Cir.1992). The public domain doctrine is limited and applies only when the applicable exemption can no longer serve its purpose. Given that the public domain doctrine appears nowhere in the statutory text of FOIA, only the failure of an express exemption to provide any protection of the interests involved could justify its application. Even if this court adopted the public domain doctrine, it would not defeat Exemption 7(C)'s applicability in this matter because the purposes of Exemption 7(C) can still be served. Finally, we reject PLN's suggestion that admission of certain records at trial is different from other types of public disclosures under FOIA. Without doubt, the public has some common law rights to court records and such rights protect important interests in public adjudications. See United States v. McVeigh, 119 F.3d 806, 811-12 (10th Cir.1997); see also Nixon v. Warner Commc'ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978). Nonetheless, we have no occasion to decide whether the autopsy photographs and death-scene video were properly removed from the public record or whether those records should have been available for public copying. [7] The claim presented here is a claim brought under FOIA and, for the purposes of FOIA, the only relevant fact about the trial is the extent of disclosure. [8]