Sunshine Week 2020: How we reported on search warrant secrecy
As part of Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open government and transparency, a dozen North Carolina newsrooms joined forces in 2020 to probe the extent of secrecy in state courts.
Past Sunshine Week projects have examined public officials’ use of travel, private email accounts, text messages, closed meeting minutes and settlement agreements. This year, the reporting team focused on search warrants sealed by judges – and why, how long and how often courts keep these normally public documents secret.
Reporting was conducted in cooperation with the North Carolina Open Government Coalition. Based at Elon University, the coalition brings together news organizations, government representatives and others who are interested in educating the public about the benefits of open government and expanding the rights of all citizens to gain access to public documents and meetings.
Reporting partners included The Associated Press; Carolina Public Press; The Charlotte Observer; The Daily Advance of Elizabeth City; The Fayetteville Observer; The Herald-Sun, of Durham; The News & Observer, of Raleigh; the Rocky Mount Telegram; WECT-TV, of Wilmington; WLOS-TV, of Asheville; WRAL-TV, of Raleigh; and WUNC public radio.
There appears to be no good way to quantify exactly how prevalent seals have become in North Carolina courts. So the reporting partnership pursued a multi-part strategy to learn about court policies, which differ from county to county.
Reporters selected 30 of North Carolina’s 100 counties from different locations and state-designated “economic distress levels” to provide a cross-section of rural/urban and prosperous/less prosperous counties.
Counties targeted included the following:
- Buncombe
- Henderson
- Cherokee
- Transylvania
- Rutherford
- Cabarrus
- Mecklenburg
- Union
- Gaston
- Cumberland
- Rockingham
- Guilford
- Forsyth
- Orange
- Harnett
- Durham
- Wake
- Johnston
- Franklin
- Granville
- Nash
- Edgecombe
- Pasquotank
- Perquimans
- Camden
- New Hanover
- Brunswick
- Pender
- Bladen
- Columbus
The clerk of court and/or senior resident Superior Court judge for each targeted county received a five-question survey in late January asking about the court’s policy for sealed warrants, how they’re tracked and how any seals could be challenged.
Separately, reporters submitted public records requests to 22 district attorneys whose prosecutorial districts include the selected counties (some districts cover multiple counties). The requests sought copies of all motions to seal filed by attorneys DA’s offices in 2019.
All records received in connection with the project, as well as a spreadsheet tracking response times and details, were shared among the news organizations.
