Court Opinion

ID: 9749863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:00:37.757488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:20.551602
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
concurring and dissenting. I concur in all aspects of the Court’s opinion except directing the trial court’s in camera review be “with only counsel for the State present.” This directive is uncalled for, in my view, for three reasons.
First, the issue was not addressed below or on appeal. At the hearing on the motion to unseal, appellants requested an in camera review with counsel for the parties and the intervenors present. The State did not speak to the issue, and nothing in the record indicates that the trial court ever considered the request. The issue having never been joined, we are jumping the gun to address it in the absence of a record, a trial court ruling, and adequate briefing.
Second, while the facts and circumstances of this case may well require an ex parte in camera proceeding, I do not believe that this is necessarily true of every case. Indeed, the seminal New Hampshire decision dealing with sealed court documents, In re Keene Sentinel, 612 A.2d 911, 917 (N.H. 1992), sets forth procedures that expressly direct the trial court to “separately examine each document in question in camera (in chambers with only counsel for the parties and for the petitioner [newspaper] present) on the record.” The circumstances in Keene, involving a ten-year-old divorce case, may not have posed the same potential risks of disclosure that are present here, but I believe the trial court has discretion on the issue. A flexible rule allowing the trial court to determine who should be present and under what conditions makes the best sense.
A third reason for declining to adopt a blanket rule requiring ex parte review of sealed documents is that, by their very nature, ex parte proceedings give prosecutors a huge advantage in that they alone appear before the judge. That advantage, in turn, deprives the court — which must render an informed decision — of the best arguments that could be made on behalf of the party seeking access to the documents. This disadvantage has long been noted by federal courts in Freedom of *166Information Act proceedings. See, e.g., Weissman v. Central Intelligence Agency, 565 F.2d 692, 697 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (noting that ex parte in camera reviews of documents “are burdensome and are conducted without the benefit of an adversary proceeding”); Ingle v. Department of Justice, 698 F.2d 259, 264 (6th Cir. 1983) (noting federal courts’ reluctance to conduct ex parte proceedings in FOIA cases), abrogated on other grounds by United States Dep’t of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993). Because ex parte inquiries by definition are less rigorous and informative, I would — if anything — make them the exception, not the rule.
•'Allowing counsel to participate does not defeat the purpose of the in camera proceeding. By keeping the adversarial nature of the process intact, the secrecy of it is not lost. A lawyer is an officer of the court and would be subject not only to disciplinary action under the code of professional responsibility, but contempt of court, or other sanctions, for unauthorized disclosure. See Vermont Rules of Profl Conduct, R. 3.4(c) (lawyer may not “knowingly disobey an obligation under the rules of a tribunal”); id., R. 1.4 cmt. (“[rjules or court orders governing litigation may provide that information supplied to a lawyer may not be disclosed to the client”). Whatever awkwardness might be engendered between lawyer and client by the lawyer’s withholding of information from the client pales in comparison to the advantage lost by the lawyer not participating at all.
Thus, the better approach in cases like this would be to allow the parties to address, and the trial court in its discretion to determine, the nature of the in camera review required. At best, the parties and the court may agree, in which case the matter will be put to rest. At worst, the issue will come to us on appeal, in which case we can render an opinion based upon an adequate record and informed briefing.
I have no quarrel with the Court’s point that a search warrant application is of necessity ex parte, as is the trial court’s initial ruling on a motion to seal. We are past that point here, however. The warrants have been executed and returned, and appellants have filed a motion to unseal. What might have appeared necessary to keep secret based upon the affidavits might now, in light of the returns and inventories, be amenable to disclosure. In these circumstances, I perceive no harm in affording the trial court the opportunity, in its discretion, to conduct an in camera hearing with all or some counsel present.