Based on a request from District Attorney David Roger, all arrest warrants and related documents have been filed under seal in Las Vegas Justice Court since the end of December.

Chief Justice of the Peace Douglas Smith signed the order, which was filed Dec. 29, that required the sealing. But in an interview Wednesday in his chambers, he admitted that the order "was overly broad" and promised to change it.

"The intent was just to comply with the law, not to hide," Smith said.

The issue came to light Wednesday when Smith conducted a hearing to discuss a media request for a court document that was sealed under his December order. The request involved the high-profile criminal case of the Rev. George Chaanine, who is wanted in connection with the attempted murder and sexual assault of a co-worker at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church.

"I didn't want to violate my own order," Smith said during the hearing.

The media request was for the declaration in support of Chaanine's arrest warrant. Smith released a redacted form of the document Wednesday.

"I just think that the public would think that we're hiding stuff if we didn't give it to them," the judge said.

Smith said the intent of his December order was to comply with a new state law that took effect Jan. 1. The law, which is aimed at protecting the confidentiality of Social Security numbers, was passed by the 2005 Legislature as a way to help prevent identity theft.

At the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lalli agreed that the declaration in support of an arrest warrant is a public record but objected to its immediate release.

The document contains new details about the Friday attack, and Lalli said Las Vegas police feared the information would jeopardize their investigation if it became public before Chaanine's arrest. But Lalli could not cite a law that allowed Smith to keep the document sealed.

On Wednesday, Smith gave the Review-Journal a copy of a new order, which had not been filed, that vacates his December order. According to the new order, the December order "is problematic in that it constitutes a blanket restriction on public access."

However, the new order goes on to declare that "all warrants of arrest and/or summonses and/or declarations in support thereof ... shall be filed under seal until further order of the court." Anyone who seeks access to the documents must file a "motion for disclosure of nonpublic information," according to the order.

The new order drew criticism from advocates of open records. "Public records are not open at the discretion of government," said Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. "Public records are public records."

Barry Smith, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said the requirement of filing a motion acts as a barrier to open records and open courts. "That's why a government erects those kinds of barriers, so that people won't even bother to go see public records," he said.

He said the burden should be on those who want to close public records, not on those who want access to them.

Lalli, who runs the criminal division of the district attorney's office, filed a declaration in December in support of Roger's request for the sealing of all arrest warrants and related documents. According to the declaration, these documents "require the inclusion of Social Security numbers and dates of birth of criminal defendants in order to enter this information into criminal databases" and "to ensure that the correct person is arrested."

"There is a substantial likelihood, should this identifying information be omitted, that incorrect people would suffer arrest due to the inability to adequately identify the person for whom the actual warrant was issued," Lalli wrote.

Lichtenstein said Social Security numbers never were meant to be used for that purpose. The misuse of Social Security numbers should not be used as an excuse to seal records "that are clearly in the realm of what is considered public information," the attorney said.

The Chaanine document did not include any Social Security numbers.