The Supreme Court of Virginia handed down two decisions Thursday in support of greater transparency in public access to both court hearings and information on government employees.
Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, called the dual transparency rulings, which were unanimous and penned by two different judges, surprising.
“We haven’t seen that kind of strength in a while,” she said.
The first decision combined two cases — Daily Press v. Commonwealth of Virginia and City of Newport News v. Commonwealth of Virginia — that dealt with public access to a bail hearing for a Newport News police officer who shot a man, as well as to sealed documents containing city emails related to the incident.
In 2019, former city officer Albin Trevor Pearson shot and killed a man as police were attempting to arrest him for allegedly abusing the city’s 911 system. (Pearson was convicted of voluntary manslaughter last month.)
The commonwealth later subpoenaed the city of Newport News for any emails regarding the offense and required that those documents be sealed from public view.
Virginia then asked that Pearson’s bail be revoked, “arguing that the sealed documents established probable cause to believe that Pearson’s pretrial liberty would pose a danger to the community.”
At a hearing on the bail request, the commonwealth asked the court to close the proceedings to the public, triggering an objection from The Daily Press, its parent company...
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