Legal Commentary

Second Judge Cancels Order That Required Newspapers to Delete Archive Stories

By Eugene Volokh

The Centre Daily Times reports, apropos the story noted here yesterday, and notes:

The Judge [Judge Thomas King Kistler] said he learned that a total of 41 expungement orders submitted to the courts by Amendola?s office named the CDT and the Collegian, a Penn State student-run newspaper, among the agencies ordered to expunge information about the defendants from their records.

In most, the addition of the newspapers to the agencies affected by the expungement order went unnoticed by the county Prothonotary?s office. Five were seen, however, and the CDT received notification of those orders last week....

Kistler said the court administration is working to find and account for all orders. Once they are found, Kistler said, they will be rescinded or revised, as appropriate.

Expungement orders are routinely used to direct agencies ? such as police, that keep records related to criminal proceedings ? to clear the records of information about people when charges are dismissed, withdrawn by prosecutors, or after they successfully complete a probationary program called ARD....

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on July 07, 2010 (boomark / email).