United States v. Pickard, No. 12-3142 (10th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendants-Appellants William Pickard and Clyde Apperson appealed the district court’s decision to deny their motion to unseal the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”)’s file on one of its confidential informants. Upon review of the matter, the Tenth Circuit concluded the district court erred in the manner in which it denied Defendants’ motion to unseal the file: (1) by failing to require the United States to articulate a significant interest in continuing to keep the DEA records sealed; (2) by not applying the presumption that judicial records should be open to the public; and (3) by not considering whether unsealing a redacted version of the DEA records would adequately serve the as yet unarticulated government interest in keeping the records sealed. For these three reasons, the Court reversed the district court’s decision to deny Defendants’ motion to unseal the records and remanded the case for the district court’s further consideration of that motion.
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