Welcome again to another edition of Paperwork Wednesday, our Wednesday segment featuring paperwork and electronic files relating to our numerous past legal cases.  All of the paperwork is from cases that are not current and have been closed.  The documents in Paperwork Wednesday include multiple CD’s (that include digital files and records from multiple email providers), Search Warrants, Protective Orders, Complaint Reports, Phone Records, Texts, PEN registers, etc.  These files were made possible by the New York District Attorney’s Office and the warrants they obtained for various individuals.

 

 

 

A lot of the questions we have been getting since we started Paperwork Wednesday are in reference to the blacked out names and sentences in the paperwork we post. Many people have asked why we would black out the names of snitches and information that implicates them.  This is a reasonable question. After all, why protect people who expose others to legal persecution? We would like to make clear that all of the blacked out parts of our paperwork were intact when the documents were given to us. We did not make those marks, they were already there.

 

But why wouldn’t someone get to see all of the evidence against them? After all, isn’t knowing what you’re up against necessary to building a proper legal defense?  Apparently the United States Justice System doesn’t always think so. When law enforcement needs to obtain warrants to further a criminal investigation the courts must grant these warrants. At the request of the District Attorney, the courts can also seal the contents of certain search warrants, thus withholding the information within them from the public (including the people they are pertaining to).

 

Only officers of the court and those with certain authority are allowed to see contents of a sealed warrant. In some cases, search warrants may be partially sealed; the contents are released to the public with certain information redacted (obscured, usually by being blacked out, as is the case with the paperwork we post).

 

Search warrants can be sealed if they contain information that would, if revealed, impede the investigation.  They can also be sealed if they contain information that might put someone in harm if made public, or if release of the contents clearly causes an invasion of privacy. For example if a search warrant contains information that might tip off a co-conspirator in a case, or information directly pertaining to an informant, that information can be sealed.

 

For those who are currently dealing with legal issues, it’s important to be aware of sealed warrants and how they can affect your case. Just because you don’t have access to all the evidence against you doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Generally speaking, law enforcement isn’t too excited about giving defendants any information about their cases and the warrants involved. Your lawyer must request for all warrants pertaining to your case, at which point the presence of sealed warrants will be revealed. You will not get to see these sealed warrants in their entirety as it is very hard and expensive to get a sealed order overturned, and also very unlikely (after all, they were sealed for a reason). Often times you will not even receive information on what the warrant pertains to, you will merely be told that it exists.

 

The other option to gain access to information contained in sealed warrants is to take your case to trial.  In a trial, evidence is presented before a jury and consequently some of the cooperating individuals (if they decide to/are supponed to testify)and censored information will be exposed.  The problem with going to trial is that in addition to it costing an exorbitant amount of money and time, you are opening yourself up to receiving a significantly harsher sentence than if you chose not to go to trial.  Also, even with going to trial, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see all of your warrants.  The courts do not recognize any right of access to warrant materials while an investigation is ongoing.  If a D.A can convince the judge that information in your paperwork could pertain to any current or future investigations, the judge will not unseal the warrants, pretty much allowing them to be sealed indefinitely.

 

Tags: court documents, ether, legal, mul, new york city, nyc, paperwork, sealed, search warrants, utah, vandalism, wednesday, week 3