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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

John Saro Balian, 45, pleaded guilty to one count each of soliciting a bribe, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators as part of a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors. The document was ordered to be filed under seal but appeared on PACER, a public online database for court documents.

I'd say that last part is the part that got LAT in trouble... I rarely support the whole "under seal" thing, especially when it's in order to protect a corrupt dirtbag cop, but this "ask for forgiveness not permission" stuff won't fly with many judges...

But yeah, this guy is scum. Not only has he gleefully profited from both sides of the ruinous Drug War, but his police status has allowed him to escape the draconian punishments that normal people suffer.

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>this "ask for forgiveness not permission" stuff won't fly with many judges...

TFA makes it extremely clear that the First Amendment gives newspapers and others the right to publish information obtained from documents that end up available to public in error. All case law indicates that the LA Times waa acting fully within the boundaries of the law and did not need to "ask for forgiveness" or whatever.

This ruling is extremely unusual and clearly unconstitutional.

Heres is the full redacted part:

>The document was ordered to be filed under seal but appeared on PACER, a public online database for court documents.

>According to the agreement, filed in U.S. District Court, Balian agreed to cooperate with federal authorities by responding truthfully and completely in interviews and court proceedings. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September, when prosecutors are expected to recommend a reduced sentence.

>The charges to which he pleaded guilty carry a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison.

So, I imagine what's happening here is that this guy played both sides, and was caught and was being used as a mole by the US law enforcement. By releasing these charges publicly, the concern is that the cartel will now know he was disloyal and may attempt revenge.

This is entirely speculative, but it seems much more probably than the judicial branch going out of its way to help the executive.

> "ask for forgiveness not permission" stuff won't fly with many judges...

According to the article, the courts have steadfastly protected this behavior for 90 years.

The paragraph before that mentions that it is often appeals courts who have protected the behavior, as various trial "...Judges have issued similar orders before..."

Incidentally, no one would wish to see the cop's family harmed, but it's not like this plea agreement came as a surprise to them, so they already had time to reorganize their lives for security. That makes the seal difficult to justify. Also, the risks they face are mostly due to the cop's actions.

> often appeals courts who have protected the behavior, as various trial "...Judges have issued similar orders before..."

That omits every time a district judge has declined to issue such an order.

In reference to the original post:

> ask for forgiveness not permission

News organizations don't ask permission of anyone before publishing, least of all courts.

Finally, I'll add that if news organizations can publish the Pentagon Papers and Snowden's leaks, certainly they can publish an accidentally leaked plea agreement.

I’d add that they are the asking for forgiveness; prior court rulings clearly established that they have “permission”, since the information was not illegally obtained, and is of public interest.

What if this crooked cop gets a job with even a modicum of authority in the future? Surely, insuring this incident shows up in background checks would help future potential employers.

> especially when it's in order to protect a corrupt dirtbag cop

It was an order to protect his family from retribution from violent psychopaths that have in the past murdered not just informants / plea deal recipients, but their entire family in the most bloody way imaginable. I would not be surprised if the headline in a few days is about his wife and children dying in ways unfit to print. And it would be irresponsible journalism of the LA Times that made it happen.

I’m one of the most pro free speech person I know, but I’m squarely with the judge and the right to seal court proceedings here. And with a now gone age of journalism where this crap didn’t happen in the first place.

Wow. Your circle of acquaintances must be strongly against freedom of speech, then.

You cannot create the Memory Hole by court order. LA Times has a constitutional right to print anything they obtain legally. They are not directly placing anyone's lives at risk by publishing.

If anything, they could publish another article about how slipshod security practices in the court system leak sensitive information to the public, and the court system tries to censor journalists rather than investigating and fixing their own problems.

The easiest way to protect the corrupt cop's family would have been to crack down on police corruption, so that no cop could get so deeply involved with a violent criminal organization that their family would ever be at risk. If the gangs couldn't get corrupt cops to cover for them, they would find it much more difficult to murder families for retaliation and intimidation.

Judging by Mexico's example, publishing may also put the journalists and their families at risk.

This is definitely shooting the messenger. In a system where doing that is illegal.

The judge is wrong, and should be reversed. Yesterday.

The "easy" way for cops, cop families, and normal people to be protected is to end the disastrous Drug War. It wouldn't matter if all police were paragons of virtue, applying enforcement rather than treatment to a drug problem is a sure way to end up with multiplied problems.

It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on not understanding it.

Drug trade earns money; money buys guns and shooters; guns and shooters protect drug trade.

> They are not directly placing anyone's lives at risk by publishing.

Yes, yes they are. That is the entire point.

Any argument you can devise for this relies utterly on the critical step "a murderer acts on information in the article". The murderer was always the one placing people's lives at risk. And the murderer could also subscribe to the very same services which index public documents and court filings daily, that newspapers often use--like LexisNexis, for instance. Users can even be alerted on certain names and keywords. The LA Times article publication isn't even a critical step!

Even "a person is shocked/scared to death by the published information" would require some physiological condition that would enable someone to drop dead from an emotional response, such as heart disease with ventricular fibrillation, or organ failure due to chronic cortisol and adrenaline poisoning.

Perhaps publication of a paradox, like "This article contains no true statements," would kill an overly-logical AI?

The crime triangle of motive, method, and opportunity is closed by the criminal--the one with mens rea, the evil motive--not by anyone who produced any element of the opportunity.

Your assertion is completely unsupportable, and indirectly hostile to freedom of speech, by attributing imagined harms to speech, when their ultimate causes lie elsewhere.

If the death penalty were ever plausibly-beneficial, this sort of low-life would deserve it.

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