A judge in Oklahoma is under fire after ordering that the divorce files from country stars Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton remain sealed, ruling that the state has legitimate cause to do so, due to the pair's popularity within American culture. That decision hasn't flown too well with some lawmakers, who claim Lambert and Shelton don't fill the requirements needed to keep such documents away from the public eye.
John Gardner, the associate district judge in question-who also happens to be retiring this week-made the decision on July 7. That has drawn criticism from attorneys and other lawmakers. Still, the judge argues that allowing the documents to remain public would have resulted in "significant publicity" regarding the personal and financial issues within the documents that typical John and Jane Does wouldn't need to wrangle with.
"These parties are entertainers and are not guardians of the public trust," he said. "Because the matters contained in this case are likely to be of significant media interest, but are private in nature and not matters which are of a legitimate public interest, there is a compelling privacy interest which outweighs the public's interest in the record."
He is, of course, correct in that point. Whether his argument extends from a legal perspective is another question.
Aaron Stiles, a former state representative from Oklahoma who literally wrote the current laws on document sealing, suggests that Gardner should have specifically sealed the elements that he felt were subject to confidentiality, while leaving the rest of the documents open to the public. We would probably find that the "good" stuff (financial details, potential salacious tidbits) would all be blocked.
It's safe to say that keeping the documents away from the media doesn't exactly merit a FOIA request on our part, but you can bet someone will come gunning for it soon enough. Many, of course, are already assuming the worst.
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