Judge Lifts Order That Sealed Clark’s Divorce Case

Lifting a temporary order issued last week, a Superior Court judge Monday rejected a request by Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark’s lawyers to seal her divorce case. Clark’s attorneys made the motion in the wake of extensive press coverage of her custody dispute with her estranged husband, Gordon Clark, who has argued in court papers that the Simpson case is consuming so much of his wife’s time that he should be given primary physical custody of the couple’s two young boys.

Marcia Clark’s attorneys have argued that the divorce case should be sealed to protect the family’s privacy and the interests of the children. Judge Robert Parkin last week temporarily closed the files and imposed a gag order, barring attorneys in the case from discussing any aspect of the divorce.

But on Monday, Parkin lifted those orders, saying Marcia Clark’s attorneys had failed to show sufficient legal reason for closing the case. He said the interests of the children were adequately protected by a 1994 order barring public release of such information as their names, ages and addresses.

Although Roslyn Soudry, Gordon Clark’s divorce attorney, opposed the sealing, she complained that her client had been vilified in the press. She also emphasized that while he wanted primary physical custody of the children, he was not seeking sole custody and was requesting joint legal custody, under which both parents would make decisions about the welfare of the boys, ages 3 and 5.