The New York Times Company v. Federal Bureau of Prisons

Background

The New York Times Company brought this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case concerning the circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 suicide. The Bureau of Prisons had justified withholding most of the relevant, unproduced documents in full under FOIA Exemption 7(A). That exemption permits withholding records compiled for law-enforcement purposes when disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with law-enforcement proceedings.

The Bureau identified two pending prosecutions as proceedings that could be disrupted: one involving Nicholas Tartaglione and another involving Tova Noel and Michael Thomas.

Court’s Analysis

The court found that the Bureau’s declarations did not provide enough detail for the court to determine which withheld documents implicated which prosecution. For at least some documents, the declarations also did not show the required rational connection between the withheld categories and likely interference with either prosecution.

Order

The court directed the Bureau to provide, for private judicial review, the withheld records identified in Exhibit 1 to the supplemental Christenson declaration. The records had to identify which portions were withheld under each FOIA exemption. For every document withheld under Exemption 7(A), the Bureau also had to identify the portions connected to each of the two prosecutions.

The parties were directed to confer and jointly propose by April 16, 2021, a schedule for providing the records to the court on a rolling basis, with all records contemplated to be submitted by May 14, 2021. The Bureau was also directed to provide two sets of the records in binder format. The order required this submission for the court’s review; it did not resolve whether the records ultimately had to be disclosed.