In two companion cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned contempt citations against two journalists employed by a North Carolina newspaper, the Wilmington Morning Star. Ashcraft v. Conoco, Inc., 218 F.3d 288 (4th Cir. 2000) (involving defendant Kirsten Mitchell), and Ashcraft v. Conoco, Inc., 218 F.3d 282 (4th Cir. 2000) (involving defendant Cory Reiss).

    Kirsten Mitchell had inspected a settlement agreement handed to her by a district court clerk. The agreement confirmed information previously obtained by the Morning Star from independent sources, verifying that Conoco Oil Co. had settled an environmental tort suit brought by 178 trailer park residents for the sum of $36 million. The settlement agreement was contained in an envelope that was part of a stack of court records handed to Mitchell by the court clerk. The clerk was responding to Mitchell’s request for court records filed subsequent to the settlement of the suit.

    In the process of handing Mitchell the material, the clerk extracted some documents, explaining that Mitchell could not have access to them because they were sealed. Among the materials handed to Mitchell was the envelope containing the settlement agreement. The front of the envelope contained a legend indicating that it was filed under seal and was to be opened only by the court. Mitchell testified, however, that since on her pile of materials the back of the envelope was face-up, she did not see this warning until after she read the settlement agreement. The envelope had previously been opened, and red printing on the envelope flap, visible on the back side which she did see, said "Opened."

    The initial order sealing the settlement agreement was entered without the hearing processes and substantive judicial findings required to seal a court document. Neither Kirsten Mitchell nor the Morning Star were parties in the underlying litigation, or bound by the terms of the sealing order. Moreover, the order sealing the agreement did not explicitly forbid third parties from revealing its terms (a provision common in such orders), but instead appeared to be directed solely to court personnel and the parties.

    The Morning Star published a story containing details of the settlement agreement, including the settlement amount. In that story the newspaper attributed its information concerning the settlement amount to unnamed confidential sources, and also stated that the amount had been confirmed through examination of official court documents given to a reporter by a court official. Cory Reiss, another Morning Star journalist who was working with Mitchell on the story, was the reporter who obtained the information on the settlement amount from confidential sources.

    Applying media guidelines promulgated by the Department of Justice in 1980 to protect freedom of the press, the attorney general of the United States declined to pursue contempt prosecutions against the Morning Star and its reporters. Notwithstanding the attorney general’s refusal to prosecute -- and indeed, before the attorney general had even completed analysis of the matter -- the district court appointed its own special prosecutor. The district court fined Mitchell $1,000 for criminal contempt, and held Mitchell and the Morning Star jointly liable for $500,000, plus costs and attorneys’ fees, for civil contempt. The district court also held Cory Reiss in contempt, ordering him to an indefinite time in jail for refusing to divulge his confidential sources to the court.

    The court of appeals reversed all of the convictions. While the litigation had attracted substantial media attention, including participation by many media amici, the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning in both cases was relatively confined and fact based. As to the convictions against Mitchell, the court held that no "bona fide decree" of the district court had been violated by Mitchell, ruling that the envelope, including the materials written on its outside, was not a judicial decree. Even if the notice on the envelope were deemed a decree, the court further reasoned, there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that Mitchell knowingly and intentionally violated it.

    The Fourth Circuit also refused to uphold the contempt conviction against Mitchell on the theory that the district court’s initial order sealing the settlement agreement had been violated by Mitchell’s actions. The appeals court held that the district court’s decision to seal these documents failed to meet the Fourth Circuit’s rigorous standards for the sealing of judicial records, including notice to interested third parties, including news organizations such as the Morning Star.

    In the companion case involving Cory Reiss, the court held that because the district court’s effort to determine Reiss’s sources was itself predicated on an alleged violation of the original sealing order, which the court had already held invalid, there could be no contempt. As water cannot rise higher than its source, there could be no "compelling justification" for forcing the revelation of a source in order to vindicate a judicial order that was itself invalid.