Court Opinion

ID: 9522059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:17:20.988774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:14.143273
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
¶ 42. dissenting. The majority opinion overturns the prior law concerning access to court records — including both *582precedent and codified rules — and thereby effectively destroys the established presumption of openness. We carefully fashioned a standard in Sealed Documents that maintained a balance between the broad values of public access and the particular needs of police investigations. 172 Vt. 152, 772 A.2d 518 (2001). Because the majority opinion defies our law and completely topples that balance, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 43. Under our law, search warrant records are accessible after the warrant is served “unless sealed by order of the court.” V.R.RA.C.R. 6(b)(15); accord State v. Tallman, 148 Vt. 465, 473, 537 A.2d 422, 427 (1987) (“[Ajfter it has been reviewed by a court, an affidavit of probable cause becomes a public document.”). The Rules for Public Access to Court Records (PACR Rules) state that a sealing order can be issued “only upon a finding of good cause specific to the case before the judge and exceptional circumstances.” V.R.P.A.C.R. 7(a)14; see also V.R.P.A.C.R. 1 (stating that the rules “shall be liberally construed in order to implement the policies therein”). This standard is consistent with the specificity requirement that we described in Sealed Documents: “the requisite showing of harm ‘must be demonstrated with specificity as to each document’; general allegations of harm are insufficient.” 172 Vt. at 161, 772 A.2d at 527 (quoting Hammock by Hammock v. Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., 662 A.2d 546, 559 (N.J. 1995)). In short, until today, the State was entitled to have a search warrant *583application sealed only if there was a reason specific to the case at hand and the case presented an exceptional circumstance.
¶ 44. The purpose of this standard was to balance the overarching values of openness and the sometimes overriding needs of police investigations. By establishing “the presumptive right of access to court records, including pre-indictment search warrant materials,” Sealed Documents, 172 Vt. at 161, 772 A.2d at 527, we ensured that transparency would constitute the defeasible default. This presumption did not, however, leave police investigations hamstrung, because the State could prevent access so long as it could demonstrate some particular exigency about the case at hand that would take the case outside this default. All that was required was a showing of some special reason — as the rules put it, “exceptional circumstances.”
¶45. In this case, the State sought to have all search warrant materials sealed based on general concerns articulated in an affidavit from an officer of the Essex Police Department. I reproduce the relevant paragraphs in full:
15) It is common practice in police investigation to keep details learned through investigation confidential, in order to be able to use those details to decipher credible tips and information from non-credible tips and information. If all of the above information were to be released to the public it would significantly hamper our ability to determine what information we receive is legitimate and relevant to our investigation, and what information is not.
16) Any potential suspect may be following this investigation in the media. The release of the above information would give any suspect access to most information and evidence the police possess. This would allow a suspect to easily avoid detection and/or respond to police questioning. It is also likely that any potential witnesses or false witnesses may be following media coverage of this investigation. Release of the above information could unduly influence the recollection of true witnesses, or allow any false witnesses to tailor information to fit with what is already known by police.
These paragraphs essentially express two rationales: that retaining nonpublic information is necessary to discern credible from *584noncredible statements, and that disclosing the state of the investigation’s knowledge might allow a suspect to evade the investigation. The majority embellishes this by stating that the “nonpublic information has a variety of uses, including enabling police to determine the relevancy or importance of information, to identify or exclude putative suspects, test theories, evaluate tips and claimed alibis, discover motives and conduct ruses,” ante, ¶ 21, as well as allowing police “to tell which facts are incidental and which vital,” ante, ¶ 26. It is left unexplained how nonpublic information enables police to “determine the relevancy of information” or “test theories” or “discover motives.” In the record, the only alleged reasons for confidentiality are to discern credibility and to deny suspects knowledge of the investigation’s progress.
¶ 46. These two rationales could apply to any information in any investigation that has yet to be concluded. They are entirely general.15 The majority concedes this point, noting that the State’s asserted rationales “may be common to all investigations, especially at the pre-arrest stage,” and that such rationales “are *585inherent to active investigations.” Ante, ¶ 31. Although the State’s arguments most obviously apply to all pre-arrest investigations, they would most likely apply beyond arrest as well. Even after an arrest of a suspect, the State may continue to gather information, which will include a need to distinguish credible and noncredible information. Moreover, co-conspirators or alternative suspects may remain at-large, to whom the State will not want to reveal the status of its investigation. Regardless, it is undisputed that the State never alleged anything special about this information or this investigation.
¶ 47. The majority, however, concludes that the specificity requirement for sealing the search warrant materials was nevertheless satisfied. In fact, the majority concludes that the specificity requirement was so clearly satisfied that the superior court’s contrary conclusion amounted to an abuse of its discretion. To reach this conclusion, the majority asserts that “specificity . . . do[es] not mean rarity” and “commonality renders the rationale no less specific.” Ante, ¶¶ 29, 31. According to this logic, the State’s justification can be specific, even if it applies to every case. As a result, “[t]hat public disclosure of investigation strategy, tactics and results to date can commonly compromise police work does not make actual examples of such instances any less specific.” Ante, ¶ 30.
¶ 48. This argument does violence not only to our prior law but to the English language.16 To say that something is “specific” is normally to say that it is particular and not general. See, e.g., In *586re Tyler Self-Storage Unit Permits, 2011 VT 66, ¶ 18, 190 Vt. 132, 27 A.3d 1071 (contrasting specificity and generality as properties that necessarily trade off against one another). The Oxford English Dictionary defines “specific” as “[hjaving a special determining quality,” and as “[specially or peculiarly pertaining to a certain thing or class of things and constituting one of the characteristic features of this.” XVI Oxford English Dictionary 157 (2d ed. 1989). Similarly, Webster’s defines “specific” as “being peculiar to the thing or relation in question” and as “restricted by nature to a particular individual, situation, relation, or effect: peculiar.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2187 (2002). The majority concedes that there is nothing special or peculiar or restricted about the rationales offered by the State. It is therefore unclear how accepting these rationales could be compatible with “the presumption that pretrial proceedings and documents are open to the public, closure being the exception rather than the rule.” Tallman, 148 Vt. at 474, 537 A.2d at 427.
¶ 49. The majority would read “specific” to mean “concrete” or “definite.” See ante, ¶¶ 15, 22-23. Our disagreement with this reading is not about a battle between dictionaries. In the abstract, “specific” can certainly have this meaning insofar as concreteness and definiteness are ways to distinguish one thing from another. But in this context, this reading is unsupportable. To begin with, this reading is incompatible with the plain language of the governing rule. According to the rule, a sealing order may be issued “only upon a finding of good cause specific to the case before the judge and exceptional circumstances.” V.R.P.A.C.R. 7(a). In this context, “specific” cannot mean “concrete” or “definite” — “concrete to the case before the judge” does not make any sense. In context, the term must mean something more like “particular” or “special.” This meaning is emphasized by the phrase “exceptional circumstances.”
¶ 50. The majority’s reading also bears no relation to the purpose of the rule. A requirement of concreteness or definiteness would ensure precision in the reason for sealing. This understanding could make sense if the purpose of the specificity requirement were to force the State to distinguish one particular rationale from others by concretely describing the rationale on which it is *587relying. The purpose of the rule is different, and the State need not hang its hat upon any one particular rationale. The purpose of the requirement is not to distinguish among rationales, but to distinguish among cases. V.R.P.A.C.R. 7(a) (requiring “good cause specific to the case before the judge and exceptional circumstances.” (emphasis added)); see also Sealed Documents, 172 Vt. at 162, 772 A.2d at 527 (requiring “fact-specific findings,” i.e., specificity relating to the facts of the case). As already described, by ensuring that there is something special about the particular case, the specificity requirement effectuates the presumption of openness. See Tallman, 148 Vt. at 474, 537 A.2d at 427. The specificity requirement forces the State to distinguish the case at hand from the default of transparency; it requires “exceptional circumstances.” This interpretation of the specificity requirement dovetails with the presumption of openness, whereas the majority’s interpretation has no such rationale behind it.
¶ 51. Correctly interpreting the standard from Sealed Documents and the rules, the superior court based its decision precisely on the absence of anything special about this case that would overcome the presumption of access. The court determined, “The State has made only general assertions that the police investigation will be jeopardized if information is released.”17 Because the State had not made “a showing of substantial harm, demonstrated with specificity,” the court concluded that “[t]he State ha[d] not met its burden of demonstrating compelling reasons that overcome the presumption of public access.” This analysis correctly tracked our legal standard. The majority, however, considers this to have been an abuse of discretion18 because the court “failed to . . . dispel” and never “rebutted, as unfounded *588or illogical,” the State’s assertion that releasing nonpublic information might harm the investigation. Ante, ¶ 21. Against a presumption of openness, however, it is the State’s burden to demonstrate that there is something uniquely harmful about disclosure in the case at hand. It is not the court’s duty to dispel generalized concerns that harm might occur; it is the State’s duty to produce specific concerns.
¶ 52. The majority characterizes this dissent as reading the rule to be “more demanding” or to “require more” than the Sealed Documents standard. Ante, ¶¶ 17-18. It does so by interpreting Sealed Documents as narrowly as possible in order to avoid its holding and then arguing that Rules 6(b)(15) and 7(a), if read on their face, must be an unwarranted expansion of Sealed Documents. I completely agree that the standard from Sealed Documents and the standard from the rules mean the same thing. As the 2001 Reporter’s Notes state, “the court must apply the standards contained in In re Sealed Documents.” Reporter’s Notes, V.R.P.A.C.R. 6(b)(15). In reality, the difference between this dissent and the majority is not whether the standards of Sealed Documents apply; instead it is over the meaning of those standards.
¶ 53. By contorting the specificity requirement of Sealed Documents and the rules, the majority overturns our settled law in this area without admitting as much. Before today, the presumption was against confidentiality. Sealing was permitted, but only if there was a reason in a particular case. The majority opinion replaces this practice with a presumption of confidentiality, at least for precharge documents. By accepting reasons that, by the majority’s own lights, are common to any precharge investigation, the majority implicitly declares that pre-indictment court records are presumptively confidential. Under today’s decision, the State can literally cut and paste paragraphs 15 and 16 of the Lawton affidavit into any precharge motion to seal and be assured of success, at least assuming the court does not “dispel” or “refute” them. Accepting such plug-and-play rationales inverts, for all practical purposes, the presumption created by Tollman and Sealed Documents, and incorporated into the rules.
¶ 54. This inverted presumption is something the State advocated on appeal. And, as the cases cited by the majority illustrate, it is a presumption that some jurisdictions have adopted. See, e.g., In re State (Bowman Search Warrants), 781 A.2d 988, 994 (N.H. *5892001). Here, however, there is a rule directly to the contrary so it is wholly inappropriate for the Court to adopt this inverted presumption by decision as the majority does today.
¶ 55. First, I believe that it is a mistake for the Court to change the legal standard while obscuring the change. Although the majority’s reasoning has the effect of overruling the Sealed Documents standard with regard to pre-arrest investigations, the majority explicitly disavows any such holding. See ante, ¶ 18. This method of dealing with the case, the litigants, and the public can only undermine acceptance of our decisions. It also causes confusion, particularly for trial judges who must make decisions on the fly. As Justice Tobriner of the California Supreme Court once complained:
In simply ignoring [the] line of controlling precedent, the lead opinion can only create uncertainty and confusion; lower courts, faced in the future with [similar cases], are provided no guidance whether to apply previously enunciated principles or the novel interpretation developed by the instant lead opinion.
People v. Tanner, 596 P.2d 328, 332 (Cal. 1979) (Tobriner, J., concurring and dissenting); see also Endermuehle v. Smith, 372 S.W.2d 464, 470 (Mo. 1963) (Leedy, J., dissenting) (“If this is not to continue to be the rule, then the cases to the contrary should be explicitly overruled, and the matter finally set at rest, and not left in doubt or uncertainty.”). If we are going to shift legal standards, we should do so openly.
¶ 56. Second, the State never presented this argument to the superior court. The State filed three motions to seal and a motion to reconsider with the superior court. In none of these filings did the State ever argue that the Sealed Documents standard, now ensconced in the rules, should not apply to court documents in a precharge criminal investigation. We routinely reject arguments on the grounds that “[c]ontentions not raised or fairly presented to the trial court are not preserved for appeal.” Bull v. Pinkham Eng’g Assocs., 170 Vt. 450, 459, 752 A.2d 26, 33 (2000). In this light, the majority’s decision to adopt the position only advocated by the State on appeal is a clear departure from “our usual convention barring new arguments for the first time on appeal.” Glassford v. BrickKicker, 2011 VT 118, ¶ 45, 191 Vt. 1, 35 A.3d 1044 (Burgess, J., concurring and dissenting).
*590¶ 57. Third, if we want to broaden the exception for public access to search warrant materials to cover the period until the State charges a criminal defendant, we should do that by amendment to the governing rule. If the rule is going to be changed, we have an important process for that in which all interests are represented. The rules were adopted with the intention that they would be “a comprehensive policy on public access” in order to prevent responses to requests that are “ad hoc . . . and may vary from court to court.” V.R.P.A.C.R. 1 and Reporter’s Notes. The rules can serve this purpose only if they constitute the exclusive set of guidelines for handling public access to court records. Today’s decision, by altering the law on public access without altering the rules, creates a divergent set of directives and thereby undermines the rules themselves. We are now saddled with a rule that calls for “good cause specific to the case before the judge” and for “exceptional circumstances,” V.R.P.A.C.R. 7(a), but simultaneously with an opinion endorsing “reasons . . . [that] may be common to all investigations,” ante, ¶ 31.
¶ 58. Fourth, I believe that the Sealed Documents standard that is incorporated into the rules correctly balances the public’s interest in disclosure with the State’s interest in confidentiality. By establishing a presumption of access but one that is not absolute, the Sealed Documents standard allows the State to seal documents where there is a particular reason to do so while simultaneously maintaining openness as the default. See In re Application & Affidavit for a Search Warrant, 923 F.2d 324, 329 (4th Cir. 1991) (“The balance . . . must be carefully struck in each case; it does not invariably fall on one side or the other.”). Precisely because it produces this delicate balance, most courts that have considered the question have held that “the public has a presumptive right of access to [pre-indictment search warrant] materials absent an overriding demonstration of harm to public or private interests.” Sealed Documents, 172 Vt. at 161 n.8, 772 A.2d at 526 n.8 (collecting cases). In particular, many courts have explicitly rejected the contention that pre-arrest search warrant materials should be treated under a different standard. See, e.g., Va. Dep’t of State Police v. Wash. Post, 386 F.3d 567, 579 (4th Cir. 2004) (“[N]ot every release of information contained in an ongoing criminal investigation file will necessarily affect the integrity of the investigation. . . . Whether this general interest is applicable in a given case will depend on the specific facts and circumstances *591presented in support of the effort to restrict public access.”); In re Search Warrant for Secretarial Area Outside Office of Gunn, 855 F.2d 569, 574 (8th Cir. 1988) (holding that for pre-indictment sealing of a search warrant the government must show “specific, on the record findings” that demonstrate that sealing is “essential” and “narrowly tailored” (quotation omitted)); Floyd v. City of New York, 739 F. Supp. 2d 376, 380 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (“[T]hat an investigation is open does not guarantee protection from disclosure . . . .”).
¶ 59. The majority is fixated on the possible effect of disclosure on the investigation19 while ignoring almost completely the reasons for public access to judicial records, and specifically to search warrant records. Indeed, it goes as far as labeling the interest in openness as “farfetched.” Ante, ¶ 27.
¶ 60. In issuing a search warrant, a judge uses one of the greatest, most intrusive, and most important powers of the judiciary and does so ex parte with no adversary presentation. We justify the exercise of that power in part because the judge is *592publicly accountable and acts under the watchful eye of an informed citizenry. Cf. State v. Geraw, 173 Vt. 350, 356, 795 A.2d 1219, 1224 (2002) (“While interposing a warrant requirement between law enforcement officers engaged in such practices and the general public does not lessen the intrusion, it does — at least — ensure that the surveillance has been found to be reasonably necessary by a ‘prior independent determination of a neutral magistrate.’ ” (quoting United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 783 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting))). Necessarily, we must abhor “so dangerous an engine of oppression as secret proceedings before the executive, and the issuing of secret warrants.” In re Kaine, 55 U.S. 103, 113 (1852).
¶ 61. It is no answer to this point that issuing magistrates are independent and disinterested as the majority argues. Ante, ¶ 27. We can say that about all public officials including here the Attorney General. The independence and neutrality of public officials is assured by the transparency of their actions; the proof is in what they do, not what we hope they will do.20
¶ 62. I have no doubt that the law enforcement investigation would proceed more efficiently and expeditiously if the officers did not have to obtain judicial approval for some of their acts.21 I also have no doubt it would sometimes proceed more efficiently and *593expeditiously if everything done in the name of a criminal investigation were secret, including the acts of the judiciary. Just as we cannot allow the former in a free and open society based on law, we cannot allow the latter. I recognize that there are instances where secret warrants are necessary, but they must be few, and narrowly and clearly justified.
¶ 63. Irrespective of the critical policies at issue in this case, I do not believe the presumption of access to be unduly burdensome on the State. Where there is any feature of a ease that distinguishes it as requiring confidentiality, the State may seek to have search warrant materials sealed or redacted. Even where there is no reason to depart from the presumption, the State may elect how to proceed. PSC Geothermal Servs. Co., 31 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 223 (“The People know that if certain procedures are employed the resulting evidence may be subject to disclosure or suppression. It is the People’s task to tailor their investigation as necessary to minimize or avoid these repercussions.”). In this case, the State is concerned that there are many detailed facts in the search warrant applications and supporting affidavits. To the extent that this is true, it is in part due to the State’s choice of what to include in those documents.22 Apparently, some of the details were simply copied from application to application even though they may not be necessary for the specific search warrant request at issue. Insofar as the State contends that its entire investigation would be laid bare to the public, the fault for that circumstance lies with the State.
¶ 64. I have two final points. First, the majority ignores the remedy of redaction, even though the State offered it as an alternative remedy. WTiile I believe that the search warrant records were properly disclosed in their entirety, I further believe that if the majority’s position is to prevail, the right remedy is redaction of the content of the records that meets the majority’s standard and not the sealing of all information contained in the search warrant documents. As with other parts of the majority *594decision, its failure to consider redaction shows that it is using a presumption of secrecy not openness.
¶ 65: If we were to remand to consider redaction, we should in this case allow the court to consider whether the circumstances at the point of remand justify a denial of redaction because the search warrant information is already public. We are essentially issuing an advisory opinion for a frozen moment in time, which very likely bears little resemblance to the current controversy.
¶ 66. Second, as a related point, the lack of speed with which we are able to handle cases of this nature continues to concern me. In the stay decision, I anticipated that we would be unlikely to decide this case in substantially less than a year — a prediction that has been basically accurate. See In re Search Warrants, 2011 VT 88, ¶ 5, 190 Vt. 572, 27 A.3d 345 (mem.) (Dooley, J., dissenting). “The time consumption should be expected because the issues are complex and important, but we should always be cognizant that the Legislature has directed that both public records trials and appeals ‘take precedence on the docket over all cases,’ except those considered to be of greater importance, and should be ‘expedited in every way.’ ” Rutland Herald v. City of Rutland, 2012 VT 26, ¶ 56, 191 Vt. 387, 48 A.3d 568 (Dooley, J., dissenting) (quoting 1 V.S.A. § 319(b)). In a case like this one, the time lag has a significant impact on the controversy itself. The state of the investigation and the state of the public’s knowledge have undoubtedly changed dramatically since the record before us was constructed.
¶ 67. I wrote the above dissent before the State withdrew its motion to seal the applications and warrants, and before the documents were released. I think the documents show that their release would have had no impact on the course of the investigation and the information in them was already in the public record. This is a demonstration of what will be kept from public access if the standard involves possible harm to an investigation rather than likely or demonstrated harm. I add only that although this decision was close to release when the State withdrew the motion, it still failed to be sufficiently timely to respond to a live controversy.
¶ 68. I concur that this case is not moot under the standard of State v. Schaefer, 157 Vt. 339, 345, 599 A.2d 337, 341 (1991), although my view on mootness is related to my position on the merits of the sealing decision. In Schaefer, we found that a media *595access request was not moot because it raised “general questions about the proper standard to apply in balancing the right of access to criminal proceedings and documents against the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal defendant to a fair trial.” Id. Here, it is settled that this case is governed by V.R.P.A.C.R. 7(a) and Sealed Documents. The trial court saw this case as the application of settled law to specific facts, a decision I believe was correct. If the majority had followed the rule and decision, as I have argued it should have and it professes to have done, I would have found the controversy moot under the Schaefer standard. It is only because the majority has amended the rule by decision, and substantially overruled Sealed Documents in the context of this case, that this case has become a decision about policy, not the ■application of policy, and is still alive under Schaefer.
¶ 69. I am authorized to state that Justice Johnson joins this dissent.

 The majority makes an argument in footnote 7 that the standard for sealing a document under PACR Rule 6(b)(15) is not the general standard for sealing set out in Rule 7(a) of those rules. As the majority acknowledges, the 2001 Reporter’s Notes to the amendment to Rule 6(b)(15) state that the search warrant records become public when the warrant is returned “unless sealed pursuant to § 7(a) of these rules.” Although the majority follows the Reporter’s Notes on other points, it pronounces the note “arguably in error” on this point. Ante, ¶ 17 n.7. Although rules are promulgated by this Court, they are drafted by a Reporter working under the supervision of a committee, in this ease the Advisory Committee on the Rules for Public Access to Court Records. See A.O. 40, § 3. The purpose of the Reporter’s Notes is to explain to us the intent of the committee in proposing the rule or amendment. Here, the Reporter has explained that the intent was that Rule 7(a) standards apply to the sealing of search warrant records, exactly the result one would expect if the rules are read together as we are required to do. Of course, there may be circumstances where we would reject the Reporter’s statement of intent as plainly inconsistent with the text of the rule; this is not one of those circumstances. Thus, I believe that we are bound by the Reporter’s factual representation of the intent of the committee whether we like the result or we do not. Obviously, here, the majority does not like the result.

 In contrast, the cases that the majority relies upon generally involved some concerns uniquely related to the case at hand. For example, in Seattle Times Co. v. Eberharter, 713 P.2d 710 (Wash. 1986), the trial judge had found a specific concern for concealing the identities of the police informants. The court explained:
[T]he police have been actively seeking the cooperation of individuals associated with prostitution. To overcome the reluctance of this group to cooperate with law enforcement officials, the police have promised to maintain the confidentiality of their informants. The trial judge reasoned that release of the unedited version of the affidavit would jeopardize the inroads made by the police into the confidences of this critical information source. In addition, [the judge] found that the release of the informants’ names would place the informants in danger from either the Green River killer or others in the prostitution community who would resent the informants’ cooperation with the police.
Id. at 711. Similarly, in PSC Geothermal Services Co. v. Superior Court, the California appellate court held that partial sealing may be permissible where the State was focused on redacting one particular sentence in the affidavit and where the protection of an informant’s identity was potentially at issue. 31 Cal. Rptr. 2d 213, 223 (Ct. App. 1994). In that case, however, the court reversed the lower court’s order to seal the entire affidavit. Id. at 223 (“[E]ven if the sealing of the affidavit were proper, sealing the entire affidavit may have been overbroad.”). No similar ease-specific concerns are alleged here. Particular concerns such as these are precisely what the specificity requirement of Sealed Documents is meant to accommodate.

 There is a dialogue in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 that captures the incoherence of treating specificity as the majority does:
‘Who’s they?” he wanted to know. “Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?”
“Every one of them,” Yossarian told him.
“Every one of whom?”
“Every one of whom do you think?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“Then how do you know they aren’t?”
J. Heller, Catch-22 17 (Dell 1962). The State, in this case, is asked to show what facts, specifically, would be harmful to disclose, and it responds essentially with, “Every one of them.” And then, when asked to explain why even seemingly innocuous facts are harmful to release, it offers a presumption-flipping, “How do you know they aren’t?” This reasoning turns the entire concept of specificity on its head. Nevertheless, in an effort to avoid conceding to overruling Sealed Docu*586merits, the majority adopts this reasoning to pound its new square peg into the well-established round hole.

 This was actually the court’s third time responding to the State. The State’s first attempt to seal was denied because the documents were not yet public. The State’s second attempt to seal was denied, and the court explained, “The Court needs a particularized showing to seal, not a general, it will ‘compromise the investigation’ to disclose.” The State then made a third attempt, including the police affidavit quoted above.

 The majority treats the superior court’s decision as an abuse of discretion — an almost impossible claim — because it refuses to own up to the fact that it is altering the legal standard for sealing. Under a genuine abuse-of-diseretion standard, I cannot see how the superior court’s decision that the State’s generalized reasons did not constitute “exceptional circumstances” as required by the rules would merit reversal. In reality, the majority is simply announcing a new standard and blaming the trial court for not predicting its action.

 Probably the main demonstration of that fixation is the majority’s statement that “[i]t is given that controlling access to information is an advantage that law enforcement must both protect and exploit.” Ante, ¶ 21. In fact, government control of information is the hallmark of a totalitarian state. Accepting government control as a given in this case is exactly why the majority has lost perspective on the balancing we must perform.
It is ironic that the majority cites as its support for this sentence a quote from a Sherlock Holmes story. As readers of Sherlock Holmes know well, most of the Sherlock Holmes investigations are based initially on a newspaper account of the police investigation of the crime and thereafter on police providing the full content of their investigation to Sherlock Holmes. Thus, in two ways the stories support the exact opposite point from that used by the majority. First, the main intent and effect of the majority decision is to keep information out of the newspaper unless the criminal investigators want it there, which as the majority points out at length, they virtually never want. This would stifle the typical Holmes revelation, which often takes the form: “He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph.” A. Doyle, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” in The Original Illustrated ‘Strand’ Sherlock Holmes 205 (Wordsworth Special ed. 1989). In fact, as Officer Lestrade comes to Holmes for help in one story, he laughs, ‘You have, no doubt, already formed your conclusions from the newspapers.” “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” in id. 169. This leads to a second point: the Sherlock Holmes stories are a demonstration that if police share the investigatory information with members of the public, the investigation is often enhanced, not thwarted. If Sherlock Holmes is to be our guide, we should open criminal investigations, not close them.

 Nor is it an answer that the recipient of a search warrant can always disclose its existence. In a missing person case, such as this one, some of the property to be searched is likely to be that of the missing person, who is not in a position to disclose the search. Moreover, if the search warrant is not public, the media or other members of the public do not know a search occurred and cannot inquire about it. Individuals whose persons, houses, papers and possessions are searched, see Vt. Const, ch. I, art. 11, are rarely neutral and are unlikely to publicly volunteer the fact of a search. Finally, these individuals can disclose the fact of the warrant, but have no knowledge of the grounds on which it was issued.

 1 agree with Justice Skoglund that this case raises important questions about the separation of powers, but come to a very different answer. The executive branch can choose or not to disclose public records about an ongoing criminal investigation; the effect of the Public Records Act § 317(c)(5) is that it has no legal obligation to disclose. 1 V.S.A. § 317(c)(5). But in this case, it is seeking to force its choice on the judiciary and to overturn the presumed disclosure of judicial records. If we are to be an independent branch of government, with the public trust and confidence of the citizens of this state, we must insist that we make the decision whether secrecy is warranted and balance fully the interests in disclosure against those in nondisclosure. As I stated in the text, I find that the majority, including Justice Skoglund, fail to give virtually any weight to the judiciary’s interest in transparency. The result is secret warrants, which I believe can be *593justified only in narrow circumstances and not on the showing the State made in this case.

 Some of the State’s arguments depend on the idea that the police must be able to retain some nonpublic information, whatever it may be. It is implausible that the State will generally be required to include every piece of nonpublic information into a search warrant application.