Stephen Frazzini, a judge in New Britain, Connecticut’s Superior Court, has forbidden Connecticut Law Tribune to publish an article, Thomas B. Scheffey reports. The article, by Isaac Avilucea, concerns a document published, apparently by mistake, on the Connecticut Judicial Branch’s website.
The Law Tribune says the order is unconstitutional prior restraint, and has filed a motion asking it be lifted. The publication’s lawyer, Daniel Klau, tells Scheffey “I am actually under a restraining order about what I can tell my own client” and that “in a child protection case on the juvenile court docket, the court granted a party’s request for an injunction barring the Connecticut Law Tribune from publishing information that it lawfully obtained about the case.”
Earlier this month a judge in Fulton County, Georgia, lifted an order that forbade news outlets from publishing a story about a school-cheating case, realizing it was made in “error.”
Avilucea, who has turned up in Poynter stories before (1, 2) said in a phone call that Monday was his last day at the Law Tribune: He’s headed to The Trentonian.