United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
Dominic W. Lanza United States District Judge
Pending
before the Court is a motion to redact transcripts (Doc. 92)
filed by Petitioner Michael Abraham Farr
(“Father”). For the following reasons, the motion
will be denied without prejudice.
BACKGROUND
In
April 2019, Father initiated this case by filing a petition
under the International Child Abduction Remedies Act
(“ICARA”), 22 U.S.C. § 9001 et
seq., which implements the provisions of the Hague
Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child
Abduction (“the Convention”). (Doc. 1.) In the
petition, Father, who is proceeding pro se, sought
an order compelling his ex-wife, Bonnie Jeanene Kendrick
(“Mother”), to return the couple’s minor
children E.G.F. and E.C.F. to Mexico.
The
case culminated in a three-day evidentiary hearing held on
June 12-14, 2019. During the hearing, the parties repeatedly
referred to E.G.F. and E.C.F. (as well as to another shared
child, K.M.K.F.) by their complete names rather than by their
initials. As a result, the Court provided the following
instruction to the parties:
Throughout the morning proceedings there have been references
to the minor children by their names. That’s
understandable. It’s very difficult and seems sort of
clinical to keep referring to them by their initials.
I’d simply note that if and when a transcript is
prepared in this case, each time the children are referred to
by their names rather than initials, the party ordering the
transcript will need to go through line by line and alert the
court reporter on where that information needs to be
redacted. So given that, it may be you want to keep referring
to them by their names, but just recognize that every time
you’re doing that, you’re buying yourself a lot
of work on the back end in terms of how the transcript is
going to look. I just want to make everybody aware of that.
(Doc. 80 at 122.)
On June
21, 2019, the Court issued an order denying Father’s
petition. (Doc. 72.)
On June
28, 2019, Father filed a notice of appeal (Doc. 76) and
placed an order with the court reporter for the transcripts
from each day of the evidentiary hearing (Doc. 77).
On July
12, 2019, the court report provided the transcripts to Father
by filing a “Notice of Filing of Official
Transcript.” (Docs. 80, 81, 82.) Each notice specified
that any “Redaction Request” was due by August 2,
2019 and that the transcripts would be released to the public
on October 10, 2019. (Id.)
No
redaction request was filed by August 2, 2019.
On
September 3, 2019, Father filed a “motion to redact
transcripts.” (Doc. 92.) It requests “that the
names of my minor children, K.M.K.F., E.G.F., and E.C.F. be
redacted from the electronic transcript. I understand the
timeframe to request such redaction with the court reporter
has expired. As a pro se litigant my knowledge of this
procedure and timeline that accompanies it was very limited.
Good cause exists for the Court to grant this motion to
protect the identity of the minor children.”
(Id. at 1.)
DISCUSSION
Father’s
request is governed by section 330.10.10(e) of Volume 10 of
the Guide to the Judiciary Policy, which provides that
“[a] party is to submit to the court reporter or
transcriber, within 21 calendar days of the
transcript’s delivery to the clerk, or longer if a
court so orders, a statement indicating where the personal
data identifiers to be redacted appear in the ...