Federal District Court v. Newspaper Tree [1]

On August 6, 2008, the Newspaper Tree [2], an online news site out of El Paso, Texas, which focuses on business, politics, and culture in the region, filed a motion [3] objecting to an El Paso federal court's sealing of plea hearings and court documents in the pre-trial phases of a large public corruption prosecution. That same day, Judge Frank Montalvo of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas [4] ordered [5] the government to file a response by September 5. 

In May 2008, Judge Montalvo rejected [6] a similar motion by a community activist to open the court's proceedings, ruling that the government's interest in the integrity of its ongoing investigation and in preventing witness intimidation outweighed the public's interest in access. At that time, the court released a few documents in redacted form, but refused to provide access to plea hearings (including putting the date of such hearings on the public docket or providing transcripts), plea agreements, and affidavits filed in support of warrants in the case.