Court Opinion

ID: 9651664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:30:28.527198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:37.189071
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Today the majority holds that a newspaper is liable in a civil action under Section 5725 of the Wiretapping and Surveillance Control Act (Act), 18 Pa.C.S. § 5725, for publishing the contents of an intercepted communication obtained by one of its reporters from a public court file. The majority’s disposition of this appeal ignores a vital fact in these circumstances, i.e., that the transcript was publicly disclosed by the district attorney, who mistakenly attached it to a public court document.
*379The Act provides for the judicial maintenance of the secrecy of the recordings and supporting documents of intercepted communications in Sections 5714-5716. The recordings, along with any transcripts, orders and reports, must be sealed, held in custody, and disclosed only under certain conditions.
The disclosure in this case resulted from the inadvertence of the judicial system. Having placed the transcript within the public file, the members of the press, like anyone else in the community, had access to it and had no personal obligation to maintain the secrecy of the documents. The fact that the transcript is supposed to be kept secret is not directed at the person who accesses it in a public file, but is directed at the persons entrusted to keep it secret. That is the judicial system.
Thus, the burden for securing the secrecy of the transcripts was placed by statute on the judicial system which failed, in this instance, to sustain that burden. It is the judicial system which is responsible for the public disclosure of the transcript for once it became a part of the public file, it became accessible to the public, including the press. To place the onus on the newspaper to keep secret that which is public knowledge seriously conflicts with the First Amendment rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). Although the majority attempts to distinguish Landmark, supra, from the case at bar, its distinction remains unconvincing. In Landmark, the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not permit criminal prosecution of a newspaper for publishing truthful information regarding confidential judicial proceedings. Here the newspaper published information from a public file which it could properly have presumed to be public knowledge. Clearly the right involved here “lies near[er] the core of the First Amendment” protection. Id. at 839, 98 S.Ct. at 1541.
For all of the foregoing reasons, I dissent.