Washoe County District Court Judge Kathleen Sigurdson was ordered on Tuesday to reconsider a recent denial of media coverage of her courtroom. Our Nevada Judges attempted to cover This Is Reno’s public records lawsuit against the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. WCSO denied This Is Reno all bodycam footage and redacted significant portions of a police report of a domestic violence call to former Reno City Manager Doug Thornley’s house.
This Is Reno sued for access to the records under the Nevada Public Records Act, but a court hearing in the case was canceled after Sigurdson prevented Our Nevada Judges from covering the hearing. Our Nevada Judges’ Alex Falconi then petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court to order Sigurdson to follow the law about media coverage of court hearings.
“I am pleased that the Supreme Court reminded District Court Judge Kathleen Sigurdson that she is not a law unto herself and must comply with the rules as any other judge, lawyer and citizen is expected to,” Our Nevada Judges’s Alex Falconi said.
Judges ruled, “The district court merely checked the box for denying the request for electronic cover and never provided any factual finding.”
Falconi regularly challenges similar denials and recently won a major case that set a precedent in Nevada for media coverage of civil court cases. He was supported by four legal aid centers and the ACLU of Nevada. The ruling expanded First Amendment court access from criminal cases to all civil cases, including family court cases.
Sigurdson’s denial came after that ruling, which mandated a First Amendment analysis for media coverage of court hearings. But Sigurdson’s media coverage denial had no analysis or reason for barring Falconi from covering This Is Reno’s public records court hearing.
Falconi’s website monitors judges, whether their rulings are upheld or overturned and media coverage of cases. He said, “Of the non-family court judges, Sigurdson has the highest error rate at 25%.”
Sigurdson was also overruled on one of three points in another public records case filed by This Is Reno against the City of Reno and the Reno Police Department. The Nevada Supreme Court ruled against This Is Reno over whether a politician’s social media messages are public records. City attorneys argued that the records should have been requested directly from the politician, not the city. The state court agreed.
The court, however, determined Sigurdson failed to consider the legality of the City of Reno’s long-standing practice of denying all records of criminal cases that are still under investigation.
