From Alobid v. Marin, determined March 9, 2026 by Justice of the Peace Choose Alka Sagar (C.D. Cal.), however simply posted on Westlaw within the final couple of days:
Petitioner, an immigration detainee who’s continuing professional se, filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus underneath 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and likewise filed a Movement for Go away to Proceed Beneath a Pseudonym.
“As a normal rule, ‘the identification of the events in any motion, civil or legal, shouldn’t be hid besides in an uncommon case, the place there’s a want for the cloak of anonymity.'” A celebration’s “use of [a] fictitious identify[ ] runs afoul of the general public’s widespread legislation proper of entry to judicial proceedings, and [Fed. R. Civ. P.] 10(a)’s command that the title of each grievance ’embrace the names of all of the events[.]'”
Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit has “allowed the usage of pseudonyms in distinctive circumstances the place essential ‘to guard an individual from harassment, damage, ridicule or private embarrassment.'” “When a celebration requests ‘Doe’ standing, the elements to be ‘steadiness[d] … in opposition to the final presumption that events’ identities are public data,’ are: ‘(1) the severity of the threatened hurt; (2) the reasonableness of the nameless occasion’s fears; and (3) the nameless occasion’s vulnerability to such retaliation.'” The occasion looking for anonymity has the burden of proving it ought to be allowed to proceed anonymously.
Petitioner seeks to proceed anonymously as a result of he’s a convicted intercourse offender who believes he might face hazard in his nation of origin—Syria—if eliminated there. Nevertheless, the character of Petitioner’s legal conviction is inadequate by itself to warrant Petitioner’s use of a pseudonym in these proceedings. See U.S. v. Stoterau (ninth Cir. 2008) (“If the character of Stoterau’s offense alone might qualify him for the usage of a pseudonym, there can be no principled foundation for denying pseudonymity to any defendant convicted of an analogous intercourse offense. Such a big broadening of the circumstances by which we now have permitted pseudonymity is opposite to our long-established coverage of upholding ‘the general public’s widespread legislation proper of entry to judicial proceedings,’ and opposite to our requirement that pseudonymity be restricted to the ‘uncommon case.'”).
And whereas “‘retaliation from a overseas authorities is acknowledged by the Ninth Circuit and different district courts as a enough foundation to proceed anonymously[,]'” Petitioner’s conclusory and unsupported assertion that he might face hazard if eliminated to Syria is inadequate to fulfill his burden of building he ought to be allowed to proceed anonymously on this motion.
