Malone v. Trammell

Filing 64

ORDER granting 42 Sealed Motion to Unseal Habeas Petition. The Court orders that portions of the Petition previously sealed, be unsealed; Respondent's Sealed Motion to Unseal to be unsealed; vacating 23 Order sealing. Signed by Honorable Timothy D. DeGiusti on 7/8/2016. (mb)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
RICKY RAY MALONE,
Petitioner,
vs.
ANITA TRAMMELL, Warden,
Oklahoma State Penitentiary
Respondent.

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Case No. CIV-13-1115-D

ORDER
This is a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 capital habeas corpus action. Petitioner is an Oklahoma
death row inmate. Before the Court is Respondent’s Sealed Motion to Unseal Habeas
Petition. (Doc. No. 42). Respondent requests the Court to unseal certain portions of
Petitioner’s Petition, and Exhibit 3 to the Petition. Id. at 6. Respondent also requests this
Court to release the parties from its order to file future pleadings under seal, and to release
the parties from its order not to disseminate the information that is currently sealed. Id.
Finally, Respondent requests that the motion itself be unsealed. Id. Petitioner has responded.
(Doc. No. 46).
When Petitioner initially requested the Court to seal the portions of the filings that
contained sensitive materials, this Court found good cause to grant that request. (Doc. No.
23). Subsequent to that order, Petitioner filed a second application for post-conviction relief
at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”), which contained not only the sealed
Exhibit 3, but an almost word-for-word replication of the sealed portion of the Petition.

(Doc. No. 42 at 2, Ex. 1 at 16-26). While Petitioner asked the OCCA to seal the relevant
portions, the OCCA ultimately denied that request. (Doc. No. 42, Ex. 3 at 11-13). That
information is therefore available to the public through the OCCA.
“Judicial documents are presumptively available to the public.” United States v.
McVeigh, 119 F.3d 806, 811 (10th Cir. 1997). But such documents can be sealed if “the right
to access is outweighed by the interests favoring nondisclosure.” Id. The rights of the public
are “presumptively paramount.” Helm v. Kansas, 656 F.3d 1277, 1292 (10th Cir. 2011)
(quoting Crystal Grower’s Corp. v. Dobbins, 616 F.2d 458, 461 (10th Cir. 1980)).
While the Court once found Petitioner’s interests to outweigh the interest of the
public, the calculus has now changed. The challenged information is currently available to
the public, although not through this Court’s files. Therefore, any interest in keeping the
information out of the public eye is extinguished. While Petitioner argues that there is a
difference in the ease of receiving electronic filings from this Court as opposed to requesting
the material in person from the OCCA, that difference does not justify maintaining a seal on
documents that are publicly available. The Court is also not persuaded by Petitioner’s
complaint that they tried to have the documents sealed by the OCCA, but were prevented by
Oklahoma’s procedural rules. The Court is in no position to second-guess Oklahoma’s
public records regulations, even if that inquiry were relevant. This Court’s sole focus is on
the interests at stake. Petitioner’s interest is substantially weakened by the public availability
of the challenged material, and is now outweighed by the presumptively paramount interest
of the public.

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Court orders (1) that the portions of the
Petition that were previously sealed, specifically pages 54-64 and Exhibit 3, be unsealed; (2)
Respondent’s Sealed Motion to Unseal be unsealed; (3) the Court’s previous sealing order
(Doc. No. 23) is vacated.
IT IS SO ORDERED this 8th day of July, 2016.