Buendia-Cabrera

MEMORANDUM **

The Copley Press, Inc. (“Copley”) petitions for a writ of mandamus to review: (a) the district court’s decision to seal the plea agreement in two cases, United States v. Hussein and United States v. Buendia-Cabrera, and (b) the Southern District’s former policy of not filing plea agreements. We have consolidated the petitions, which we now deny. The facts are familiar to the parties, and we will not recite them here.

As an initial matter, we note that Copley’s writ 1 in the Buendia-Cabrera case is timely under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a). The order Copley wishes us to review is clearly civil in nature. The qualified right of the press for access to *483 court records, including plea agreements, arises from the First Amendment.

The district court did not err when it concluded that the plea agreements in both the Hussein and Buendictr-Cabrera cases should have been filed and sealed when the plea was taken, and therefore denied Copley access to them. The district court satisfied the procedural requirements of the First Amendment for closure of the plea agreements in these cases. 3 Copley does not dispute that the court allowed it to file objections and…