Media Groups Fight ‘Jane Doe’ Request In Gun Law Case

October 4, 2018

Media organizations from across the country are urging a federal appeals court to reject an attempt to allow two teens to remain anonymous in a challenge to a new Florida gun law.

A brief filed last week on behalf of 21 organizations argued that allowing the teens to take part in the challenge as Jane Doe and John Doe would hinder public access to court proceedings. The National Rifle Association filed the challenge in March to a law that increased from 18 to 21 the minimum age to buy rifles and other long guns in Florida.

“(The NRA and teens’) allegations in this case are — as they themselves argue — significant matters of public concern, especially because their challenges are framed as an assertion of their constitutional rights, and seek ultimately to invalidate legislation,” said the 40-page document, filed by attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The testimony by and concerning Does (the teens) could very well affect the ultimate outcome of this case. Open litigation, with full disclosure of the parties’ identities, will allow the public to better understand and assess the parties’ competing claims, and their credibility, and to make informed judgments about the administration of justice in this case.”

The filing at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta is the latest move in a case that stems from lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott approving gun restrictions after the February mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.

The NRA quickly filed a federal lawsuit challenging the age change for purchasing guns and later sought to add a 19-year-old Alachua County resident as a plaintiff and identify her as Jane Doe. It also sought to add to the case allegations related to another 19-year-old identified as John Doe.

But Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office has fought allowing the teens to take part in the case anonymously, and U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in May agreed with the state’s legal position. That prompted the NRA to take the anonymity issue to the appeals court. The underlying lawsuit challenging the gun law remains pending.

The NRA has argued in court documents that anonymity is needed because of concerns for the safety of the teens. As part of its case, the NRA has cited threatening and often-vile emails received by longtime NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer.

“Jane Doe and John Doe, two 19-year-old Florida citizens, seek to participate in this lawsuit challenging Florida’s age-based ban on the purchase of firearms anonymously, based on the reasonable, documented fear that they would suffer harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence if their true identities and participation in this controversial litigation were made public,” said a brief filed in June by the NRA’s attorneys. “Under the standard for pseudonymous pleading established by this court’s precedents, Jane and John Doe should clearly be allowed to remain anonymous.”

The attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed the friend-of-the-court brief Friday on behalf of organizations ranging from the American Society of News Editors to The Dallas Morning News. Among the organizations were The McClatchy Co., which operates the Miami Herald and Bradenton Herald newspapers, and South Florida’s WPLG television station.

In addition to raising arguments about public access to court proceedings, the media organizations disputed the NRA’s argument that the teens need to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

“Put simply, the record before this court is devoid of any factual basis on which to conclude that there would be a legitimate risk of retaliation against Does themselves if their identities were revealed in this litigation,” the brief said. “Permitting Does to proceed pseudonymously in this case would provide grounds for any plaintiff asserting a ‘controversial’ claim to do so. Such broad use of pseudonymity is impermissible.”

by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida

Comments

4 Responses to “Media Groups Fight ‘Jane Doe’ Request In Gun Law Case”

  1. Rocky on October 6th, 2018 12:26 am

    I really don’t understand why these news agencies would have an issue with this case proceeding with anonymous testimony. They’ve made it blatantly obvious that they don’t watch the news if they can even remotely suggest that these two individuals would not be threatened, harassed, and very likely harmed.

    I mean seriously… Since the NRA suggested the anonymous testimony, we have had one Obama/Soros funded organization after another hounding them, insisting that they must stand up and be recognized, so those organizations can send their minions to harass them. Because that is the way they play the game.

    The only other way to resolve this matter would be to bus every 18 – 21 year old desiring to own a gun to the trial and flood the court. But the opposition will be there protesting, to agonize all them.

    What we truly need in this matter, is for our elected leaders to find the intestinal fortitude to put the people leading these problem makers behind bars for a very very long time, or exercise the death penalty for their treasonous actions against the United States of America. Then there would be no opposition to anonymous testimony in this case.

  2. John R Groton on October 5th, 2018 11:40 pm

    It seems ridiculous to assert that the Does don’t require/shouldn’t be allowed anonymity in this case. Given the current fervor in this country at present to assault any person, program, event, historical item/object that offends them via verbal, written, print, media, technology or physically it would seem prudent to grant their request for anonymity. The same authorities that deem them not mature enough to purchase a firearm at age 18 would then declare that they are mature enough to face the almost certain violent acts of the dissident factions.

    If a person 18 years of age is considered mature enough to be armed and trained to kill in the armed services of this country, are they not also mature enough to purchase a firearm for recreational use? This would seem to be an illegal double standard. This another instance of elected officials using their office to force their own personal desires on the populace. They are elected to REPRESENT their constituents; not mandate unpopular laws/regulations upon those same constituents Let your voices be heard and then vote them out. Enough said.

  3. jp on October 4th, 2018 9:17 am

    What Duns Megus said is obiously 100% correct to anyone watching events with an open mind.

    To that I will add that the Main Stream Media (MSM), has in most cases shown extreme bias against President Trump, conservatives, and the Constution.

    The MSM has shown that they will publish anything they can get their hands on including information that helps our countries enemys kill more of us.
    Take for instance blabbing that our military was tracking and listening to enemy’s cell phones. So they just quit using cell phones to communicate.

    Young adults under the age of 21 might think about joining the NRA in the fight to overturn this unconstitutional law. If enough people join in it will lesson the backlash.

    We have to defend our liberties or loose them.

  4. Duns Megus on October 4th, 2018 5:53 am

    Who’s living in fairlyland? The behavior of the Lunatic Left is evidence enough, overabundant evidence, that Jane and John Does’ lives would be threatened and be made hell on earth.

    When college students kick in University doors and riot on campus merely to protest a one-time appearance of a conservative speaker; when we hear that Kavanaugh and Ford both have had to leave their homes and hide from violently irresponsible members of rabid, mouth-foaming movements — the veracity of their need for protection is baldly evident.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News