ORDER SEALING DECLARATION AND REQUIRING REDACTION

Re: Dkt. No. 58

JOSEPH C. SPERO, Chief Magistrate Judge.

On March 4, 2020, in response to the Court's request at the hearing on Defendants' motion to dismiss, Defendants filed a declaration of their counsel Ankush Agarwal attaching a copy of a search warrant referenced in Plaintiff Bobbie Woods's complaint and an affidavit supporting that warrant. The search warrant and affidavit include the names of multiple suspects. According to Woods's complaint, the subject of the search warrant who resided at his home is a minor. The affidavit also includes the birthdates of several suspects, indicating that they are minors. Rule 5.2(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure generally prohibits filing the birthdates of any individuals or the names of minors in the public record of a civil action in federal court, and instead requires parties to redact all but a minor's initials and the year of any individual's birth.

Although the search warrant could perhaps fall within the exceptions for an "official record of a state-court proceeding" or a "record of a court or tribunal, if that record was not subject to the redaction requirement when originally filed," Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2(b)(3)-(4), it is not clear that the search warrant would be available to the public outside of the record of this action, and even if it were, concerns about the privacy of juvenile law enforcement records would likely outweigh further publicizing a minor suspect's name in this Court's docket. The Court declines to apply those exceptions.

The declaration and attachments are therefore SEALED. To complete the public record of this action, Defendants are ORDERED to file a redacted version of the declaration and its attachments complying with Rule 5.2(a) no later than March 9, 2020.

IT IS SO ORDERED.