{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreiakgbbbjyrnowcdoxhup2eqyzota4mg7s5gt3mjjwdccmb3wep36q",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:brbfxknpinpcv53otqnq7pxe/app.bsky.feed.post/3miqvte7wr532"
  },
  "description": "Public access to judicial records demonstrate that justice is fair, promotes public confidence in the judiciary, provides a check against possible abuse of judicial power, and helps the proceeding find the truth of events, the petition argues.",
  "path": "/inland-empire-law-weekly-asks-supreme-court-to-unseal-riv-sheriffs-ballot-seizing-search-warrants/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-05T13:58:38.000Z",
  "site": "https://ielaw.news",
  "tags": [
    "at this link",
    "on April 1",
    "California law",
    "Bianco told The Press-Enterprise by email",
    "Kiel was biased",
    "Riv. Sheriff’s attorney accidentally released election investigation documentsOne spreadsheet indicates that REIT’s initial recount was wrong. REIT first said 45,000 ballots appeared in the final tally. A spreadsheet with the date Feb. 13, 2026, indicated they were off by 18,000, because they did not count ballots collected at the drop box at the Registrar of Votes.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloin",
    "In the 1984 case",
    "In the 1986 case",
    "Justice in Plain Sight: How a Small-Town Newspaper and Its Unlikely Lawyer Opened America's Courtrooms",
    "NBC Subsidiary v. Superior Court",
    "oral history I recommended last month"
  ],
  "textContent": "The California Supreme Court should unseal court records related to Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco's investigation of the November election, a coalition of news publications, including Inland Empire Law Weekly, say in a petition filed April 3.\n\nPublic access to judicial information proves that justice is fair, promotes public confidence in the judiciary, provides a check against possible abuse of judicial power, and helps the litigants find the truth of events, the petition argues.\n\nBianco seized roughly 1,000 boxes of ballots from the Riverside Registrar of Voters with the intent to recount the number of ballots received. The Riverside Record first reported the seizure. His recount by Sheriff's Office employees was paused at the direction of Attorney General Rob Bonta. He then requested a recount under the authority of Riverside Superior Judge Jay Kiel. Kiel approved the recount, but Bonta filed to stop it in Riverside Superior Court, the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court. Kiel paused executing the recount until Bonta's petition is resolved, according to a document filed by Robert Tyler, Bianco's attorney.\n\n\"The Media Coalition takes no position on the substance of the underlying disputes relating to the election. Whatever the outcome, however, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution demands that the judicial records relating to these disputes in this case be public. Indeed, the First Amendment right of access undoubtedly extends to petitions and related records filed in this Court. This is especially so considering the subject matter of this dispute: elections, which undergird our republican form of government and have long been subject to public inspection. Sealing here is directly contrary to this tradition, and no party has demonstrated that such sealing complies with strict constitutional requirements,\" the petition says.\n\nSince announcing the investigation at a press conference, Bianco has affirmed Kiel's decision to approve the recount while attacking other judges and Bonta's legal petitions.\n\nThe petition to unseal was filed in the California Supreme Court by Jassy Vick Carolan LLP on behalf of a coalition of 13 news companies. Those companies are Inland Empire Law Weekly, the Riverside Record, CalMatters, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, KCAL, KCRA, KCBS, ABC News, Fox Television Stations, NBCUniversal Media and California Newspapers Partnership, which owns The Press-Enterprise.\n\n\"Here, however, the entire substance of the search warrant materials remains under seal and out of sight of the public, as well as do much of the factual averments contained in the declarations and briefing in this case. Such wide-ranging sealing is improper,\" the petition reads.\n\nRead the petition at this link.\n\n### County court petition\n\nA separate petition brought by the same media coalition, excluding Inland Empire Law Weekly, was filed in Riverside Superior Court on April 1. That petition also asked to unseal the warrants and affidavits, but on separate grounds. The petition should be unsealed because search warrants should be accessible to the public after 10 days of their execution under California law, and because court records can be sealed only after a finding that it's in the public interest.\n\nIn response to the April 1 filing, Bianco told The Press-Enterprise that he would not oppose the petitions to unseal.\n\n\"My office will be recommending that the warrant be unsealed, as we no longer have a need for secrecy and certainly are not opposed,\" Bianco told The Press-Enterprise by email.\n\nRead the motion to unseal at this link.\n\n### Absence of info\n\nWithout any authoritative explanation of the reason for the recount, members of the public can only exchange theories of election fraud or judicial bias.\n\nThe San Francisco Chronicle implied Kiel was biased, based on the facts that he and Bianco both associate with pastor Tim Thompson, and that Bianco endorsed Kiel for judge. Law enforcement officials typically endorse prosecutors for judge over former public defenders, as Kiel's opponent in the 2023 election, then-commissioner Laura Garcia was. (Garcia has since been appointed to a judgeship, and shares the Riverside Hall of Justice with Kiel.)\n\nFollowing Bonta's petition in the Court of Appeal to halt the ballot recount, Bianco called the Court of Appeal \"extremely politically biased,\" without offering any reason for the claim. The Court of Appeal denied the petition.\n\n### Some documents inadvertently released\n\nSome documents from the investigation were accidentally released by Tyler, the Sheriff's Office's attorney, Inland Empire Law Weekly reported April 2. The documents were shared by Tyler to the Attorney General's Office through a OneDrive link Tyler uploaded to court. The OneDrive included documents used by the Sheriff's Office in its ongoing investigation, uploaded from at least March 27 to April 2. After the publication of Inland Empire Law Weekly's story, Tyler removed access to the OneDrive through the link.\n\nThose documents included a tally of ballots counted vs received, and an investigator's interviews of county staff and the Registrar of Voters in 2023.\n\nRiv. Sheriff’s attorney accidentally released election investigation documentsOne spreadsheet indicates that REIT’s initial recount was wrong. REIT first said 45,000 ballots appeared in the final tally. A spreadsheet with the date Feb. 13, 2026, indicated they were off by 18,000, because they did not count ballots collected at the drop box at the Registrar of Votes.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloin\n\n### Press-Enterprise's past lawsuits central to claims of open access\n\nThe petition cites precedent established by The Press-Enterprise in the 1980's, when publisher Howard Hays worked with attorney Jim Ward to bring cases ensuring the public's right of access to court proceedings. Their litigation would result in two cases before the Supreme Court in 1984 and 1986, and a third case before the California Supreme Court in 1999.\n\nIn the 1984 case, The Press-Enterprise argued that voir dire in a rape and murder case should be open to the public and press. The state opposed their motion, finding that juror responses would lack the candor necessary to assure a fair trial. The county court agreed. The Press-Enterprise petitioned for the voir dire transcript after the defendant was convicted. The court denied the application, and the California Court of Appeal denied the newspaper's petition to release the transcript. The California Supreme Court denied the case, but it was picked up by the United States Supreme Court.\n\nSupreme Justice Warren Burger wrote the opinion of the court, which was joined by two concurring opinions and no dissents.\n\n\"When limited closure is ordered, the constitutional values sought to be protected by holding open proceedings may be satisfied later by making a transcript of the closed proceedings available within a reasonable time, if the judge determines that disclosure can be accomplished while safeguarding the juror's valid privacy interests. Even then a valid privacy interest may rise to a level that part of the transcript should be sealed, or the name of a juror withheld, to protect the person from embarrassment,\" Burger wrote.\n\nIn the 1986 case, California charged a nurse with murdering 12 patients. The magistrate granted the defendant's motion to exclude the public from the 41-day preliminary hearing, and then denied The Press-Enterprise's petition to release the transcript. The Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court both decided not to take up the case. Burger again wrote the majority opinion for the United States Supreme Court. Public examination of trials was an essential quality of courts in England as well as the American colonies, Burger wrote. He found that the public's right to public access extends to preliminary hearings.\n\nThe story of The Press-Enterprise's suits was written into a book by former Press-Enterprise reporter Dan Bernstein in 2019: Justice in Plain Sight: How a Small-Town Newspaper and Its Unlikely Lawyer Opened America's Courtrooms.\n\nThe petition filed in the Supreme Court this week references the 1984 case, and the 1999 case NBC Subsidiary v. Superior Court, which references the 1986 case.\n\nNBC Subsidiary involved the press' interest in covering actress Sondra Locke's Los Angeles lawsuit against Clint Eastwood for deceit regarding alleged promises to help in the development of movies. The court issued an order that all proceedings in the case held outside the presence of the jury will be closed to the public and the press. The court then sealed the transcript. The Press-Enterprise Company, and a coalition of other media, sued.\n\nChief Justice of California Ronald George, (whose oral history I recommended last month), wrote the unanimous opinion affirming the right of access to judicial proceedings.\n\n\"The need to comply with the requirements of the First Amendment right of access may impose some burdens on trial courts. But courts can and should minimize such inconveniences by proposing to close proceedings only in the rarest of circumstances,\" George wrote.",
  "title": "Inland Empire Law Weekly asks Supreme Court to unseal Riv. Sheriff's ballot-seizing search warrants",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-05T13:58:38.659Z"
}