Obviously it's disappointing that I didn't win the inaugural FIFA Peace Award. I felt like I had a good shot at it, and that there was a case to be made. But I'm not giving up, and I will do whatever it takes to win the next one. They're definitely going to keep giving it out.
![ROE, Circuit Judge.1
Hitting the jackpot isn't always everything it's cracked
up to be. Just ask "John Doe," today's appellant.
Doe won 1.35 billion (yes, billion with a "b") dollars
in the Maine State Lottery. And then he made "Sara Smith," the
mother of his child, sign a non-disclosure agreement ("NDA")
swearing her to secrecy about the win and his identity. But Smith
may have spilled about Doe's lotto win anyway, thus violating the
1 Just kidding -- Judge Thompson authoring here.
But wouldn't it raise eyebrows if the parties and the public
didn't know who was deciding the case? Thankfully, even if the
panel opted to publish a per curium opinion so that the identity
of the authorizing judge was not disclosed, we've still got all
our names on the cover page to let the public know the judicial
arbiters.
As you'll see throughout today's opinion, we believe our
precedent makes paramount the principle of transparency as a
bulwark of the effectiveness of our judicial system and the
public's trust in it. As Chief Justice of the United States Warren
Burger once said, "People in an open society do not demand
infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for
them to accept what they are prohibited from observing." See Adam
Liptak, Secrecy in Lawsuits Has 'Run Amok,' Scholars Say, N.Y.
Times, Aug. 27, 2026. (cleaned up). And increased secrecy in the
courts has not gone unnoticed. In the view of one recent New York
Times article, "[s]ecrecy in lawsuits has 'run amok'" in federal
courts, and studies show that "judges are not doing enough to
protect the public interest in openness." See id. If true, some
would view this as troubling. So putting spotlight on the problem
via a creative little formatting tweak in our opening line is an
easy thing we can do to remind the public of the historical
scaffolding that undergirds our judicial framework of transparency
and public access.
All that's to say: that eye-grabbing opener isn't just for
show but rather, a preview of w…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:wovz3whdkughp6decczypkqq/bafkreidmxgv7fclc7tvqq66mbuwpg6z36gic7fzpt5buerttuulwhf26vu)
