Lepore v. United States, No. 20-1836 (1st Cir. 2022)
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The First Circuit reversed the order of the district court ordering the release of sealed archival records of certain grand jury proceedings and its judgment in favor of historian and Petitioner Jill Lepore, holding that the federal court did not have the authority to order the release of the grand jury records.
As research on a book she was writing, Petitioner filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the release of sealed archival records of grand jury proceedings from 1971 that were held to consider possible criminal charges arising out of the publication of excerpts from the "Pentagon Papers," a government study of the Vietnam War. The district court ultimately ordered the records released. The First Circuit reversed, holding that the court erred in holding that it had the authority to order the release of grand jury records based upon its finding that historical interest in the records outweighed any countervailing considerations.
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