A federal court dismissed Dr. Samantha Hallman’s First Amendment lawsuit after she sought public access to audio and video recordings of criminal court proceedings. The district court’s ruling — which required evidentiary proof at the pleading stage and incorrectly analyzed the right-of-access doctrine — is now before the Sixth Circuit. The appeal raises three issues: whether the district court applied the wrong legal standard, whether the First Amendment requires access to court recordings, and whether a blanket policy against releasing those recordings constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint. All claims are allegations; the case has not been adjudicated.
| Case Name | Samantha Hallman v. Travis Reeds, et al. |
| Appellate Case No. | 25-2166 (Sixth Circuit) |
| District Case No. | 2:25-CV-10939 (E.D. Mich.) |
| District Judge | Hon. Brandy R. McMillion |
| District Court Judgment | October 28, 2025 (dismissal) |
| Notice of Appeal Filed | December 22, 2025 |
| Appellant Brief Filed | April 8, 2026 |
| Appellant’s Counsel | Brian D. Bardwell, Speech Law LLC (Cleveland) |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit |
| Status | Briefing — active litigation; all claims are allegations |
What Happened in the District Court
Dr. Samantha Hallman filed a federal civil rights complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan alleging that officials identified as Travis Reeds and other defendants maintained policies that blocked public access to audio and video recordings of criminal proceedings, including sentencing hearings and motions to quash. She alleged this violated the First Amendment’s right of public access to court proceedings.
Judge Brandy R. McMillion dismissed the complaint on October 28, 2025. The brief filed in the Sixth Circuit characterizes the dismissal as a procedural and doctrinal double error: first, the district court imposed an evidentiary burden on Hallman at the pleading stage, and second, it analyzed the right of access too narrowly by demanding a specific historical record for recordings as a distinct technology, rather than examining access to the underlying proceedings those recordings document.
The complaint alleges the district court dismissed based on the absence of evidence, rather than accepting well-pleaded allegations as true. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) requires courts to treat adequately pleaded factual allegations as established for purposes of the motion; the brief argues McMillion’s analysis instead demanded proof more appropriate to a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56.
The complaint alleges the district court demanded a historical record of public access to audio recordings specifically, rather than to the sentencing proceedings those recordings document. The brief argues this framing is constitutionally wrong: the right of access analysis under Press-Enterprise asks about the proceeding, not the format of the record.
The Constitutional Framework: Experience and Logic
The First Amendment right of public access to court proceedings is governed by the two-part test established in Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501 (1984) and 478 U.S. 1 (1986). A right of access attaches when the type of proceeding in question satisfies both prongs: there must be a tradition of openness (the experience prong), and openness must play a significant positive role in the functioning of that proceeding (the logic prong).
Hallman’s brief argues both prongs are satisfied here, and that the district court’s error on each was the same structural mistake: treating audio recordings as a novel artifact requiring its own independent history of access, rather than as a medium through which the public accesses proceedings that have been open since the founding era.
The brief cites state court decisions from South Carolina dating to 1791 and 1835, a Louisiana court from 1849, and a District of Columbia circuit case from 1834, establishing that criminal proceedings including sentencing have been open to the public as a matter of common practice reaching back to the founding. The brief argues this history is what the First Amendment experience prong asks about, not whether any particular recording technology was accessible in 1791.
The brief identifies six documented functions audio recordings serve beyond what written transcripts provide: access for those who cannot read transcripts; independent public verification of transcript accuracy; capacity to fill gaps where transcripts are incomplete; resolution of internal transcript inconsistencies; capture of nonverbal communication that is by definition untranscribable; and more effective public engagement with court proceedings than static documents produce.
Why Transcripts Are Not a Substitute
A central structural argument in the brief is that the district court implicitly treated transcripts as an adequate alternative to audio recordings, eliminating the constitutional need for the latter. The brief contests this premise on multiple grounds.
Transcripts are produced by human reporters and are subject to error. They omit pauses, tone, hesitation, and nonverbal conduct. A 1983 Federal Judicial Center study, cited in the brief, documented specific ways in which audiotape methods for district court reporting captured what stenographic methods missed. Court proceedings produce nonverbal communication — hesitations before answering, visible distress, judicial demeanor during sentencing — that written transcripts structurally cannot preserve.
The brief cites Federal Rule of Evidence 1002 and Michigan Rule of Evidence 1002 for the proposition that audio recordings are distinct originals, not merely duplicative of written transcripts. The “best evidence” rule itself recognizes that recordings and transcriptions of those recordings are different evidentiary objects with different informational content.
The brief also notes that audio and video coverage of appellate proceedings has been common for decades, with a GAO report from 2016 documenting widespread practices across the federal appellate system. Several states have long permitted audio recording access under their court records rules, including Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, and others. The brief frames this body of practice as itself constituting a “history of openness” under the experience prong, independent of the eighteenth-century common law cases.
The Prior Restraint Claim
Hallman’s second constitutional claim, dismissed alongside the access claim, alleges that defendants maintained a policy that presumptively blocked release of courtroom recordings without requiring any individualized showing of harm or compelling interest. The brief argues this operates as a prior restraint on protected speech.
Prior restraints are the category of government action the First Amendment treats most harshly. Under Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976), they carry a heavy presumption of unconstitutionality that the government must overcome with specificity. A blanket policy that presumptively suppresses entire categories of court records, without any finding about particular proceedings, is the type of broad prophylactic restriction the prior restraint doctrine is designed to strike down.
The brief documents that defendants never argued their closure orders could survive strict scrutiny, the standard that governs First Amendment right-of-access restrictions. The Sixth Circuit has held that where the right of access attaches, the government must show a compelling interest and narrow tailoring to justify closure. By failing to advance that argument below, defendants conceded the constitutional question under the standard the right-of-access doctrine actually requires.
Why This Case Matters Beyond Dr. Hallman
The Sixth Circuit covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. A ruling that the First Amendment right of access extends to audio and video recordings of federal criminal proceedings would bind all federal district courts in those states. It would establish that the constitutional analysis for court recordings turns on the nature of the proceeding documented, not on the recording technology used, closing the doctrinal loophole the district court used to dismiss Hallman’s complaint.
The case also arrives at a moment of growing tension between court transparency norms and institutional resistance to recorded access. Several federal circuits have addressed related questions, but the Sixth Circuit has not squarely ruled on whether the right of access extends to audio recordings of criminal proceedings. If it takes the case fully, it will be doing so on a factual and doctrinal record that raises both the procedural and substantive constitutional questions in cleanly presented form.
Sources
Rita Williams, A Federal Court Blocked Public Access to Courtroom Audio. Now the Sixth Circuit Has to Decide If That Was Constitutional., Clutch Justice (Apr. 11, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/11/hallman-v-reeds-first-amendment-court-recordings-sixth-circuit/.
Williams, R. (2026, April 11). A federal court blocked public access to courtroom audio. Now the Sixth Circuit has to decide if that was constitutional. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/11/hallman-v-reeds-first-amendment-court-recordings-sixth-circuit/↗
Williams, Rita. “A Federal Court Blocked Public Access to Courtroom Audio. Now the Sixth Circuit Has to Decide If That Was Constitutional.” Clutch Justice, 11 Apr. 2026, https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/11/hallman-v-reeds-first-amendment-court-recordings-sixth-circuit/.
Williams, Rita. “A Federal Court Blocked Public Access to Courtroom Audio. Now the Sixth Circuit Has to Decide If That Was Constitutional.” Clutch Justice, April 11, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/11/hallman-v-reeds-first-amendment-court-recordings-sixth-circuit/.
