Florida's 4th District Court of Appeals has just reversed a previous ruling by Judge Jack Schramm Cox which ordered the Palm Beach Post newspaper to remove from its website previously published online material that may be critical to the ongoing case involving jailhouse informant Frederick Cobia. The Court of Appeals determined excessive Judge Cox's previous decision, which prevented any person or organization to reveal or publish information about any calls made by Cobia in the course of his cooperation with the state.
The ABA Journal gives more details about the material that Judge Cox had ordered removed from the Palm Beach Post website which are transcripts of recordings of the telephone calls made by Cobia. Judge Cox has made that decision following the argument of Cobia's legal representative that any public publishing of the calls made by or about his client is a violation of his rights to privacy. He also held in contempt one assistant public defender involved in the case for going against his ruling. However, the Palm Beach Post did gain its lost ground with the recent appellate ruling, which their lawyer Martin Reeder described as a win for the First Amendment.
In an article by My Palm Beach Post itself, Reeder elaborated on his position. He had previously made a defense of the Post, saying that the source material from which the Post obtained the transcripts was itself a public platform, which were actual court transcripts that were open to the public.
Jim Tampa, another lawyer interviewed for the My Palm Beach Post article, supported the reversal, saying that upholding Cox's earlier ruling could have serious repercussions in today's data-centric world where information can easily be obtained through the web or social media posts. He believed that the removal of the online transcripts could establish a precedent and in the future prevent lawyers from posting on their private Facebook pages information that can help their clients.
A story by the Associated Press posted on ABC News pointed out an earlier Supreme Court ruling that prevents judges from blocking newspapers from posting information online. The exceptions to this rule had been very few.
