Speaking of threatening rights
MKS reports that: Now we have a judge, in an attempt to force testimony, saying a former reporter cannot get financial help to pay court fines.
6 Responses to “Speaking of threatening rights”
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March 11th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Well if comtempt fines are levied in an attempt to encourage a change in a person’s behavior then there is no point in allowing other people to pay them. In this case, the reporter is clearly in the wrong.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Might be clear to you but it certainly is not clear to me. Why should she be fined for upholding a contract she made with the people who informed her about what the _government_ was doing? Why not just get the _government_ records of what the _government_ was doing?
March 11th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
That’s gonna be reversed by a sane supervising judge or appellate panel real soon. “Thirty dollars or thirty days” to people who cannot pay has not been the law in America for a long time. If she can’t pay, she walks.
March 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Bob- She didn’t have the ability to contract because there is no federal shield law.
Nk- Incorrect. It a penalty for contempt of court. I doubt any judge will overturn it. Several people are have been in jail for over two years for contempt for not revealing information requested by a judge. In this particular case federal law is clear, she has no defense to not revealing her source. if the judge in this case is serious, she will do time indefinitly and rack up a large bill.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
No sympathy for her, and no sympathy for so-called shield laws to prevent these kind of cases. She has no more and no less right to hide information about a crime than I do, or Say Uncle does, and certainly no more right or no less right to write about it than the rest of us. If she has information about a crime, she’s just Josephine Citizen like any other, and can and should be subpeoned and trotted before a grand or petit jury just like anyone else. If you don’t think witness should be compelled testify, or participants immunized and compelled to testify, then change the law for EVERYONE, don’t carve out an exception for journalists.
Shield laws let the government decide who is to be protected by the law, in essence deciding who is an “authorized” journalist. Guess what? That would almost certainly not include bloggers, people with cellphone cameras, or even just a pencil and paper, even though they all could at points engage in reporting and commenting on news. The government should have no say in who is allowed to engage in journalism and publishing, and this is what a shield law does.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I certainly am not advocating shield laws and that was not the basis of my question. But this is not a criminal trial, it is a civil trial. I don’t see why is necessary for her to reveal by name where she got her information if she is willing to testify that she did indeed get it from government employees as claimed by her and which is the basis of the suit by Hatfill.
The government employees may very well have committed a crime by providing her with this information. She could then be required to provide information to a grand jury if the government wished to prosecute the employees involved; that might involve jail if she did not cooperate with the investigation.
I just don’t see how it is relevant to Hatfill’s suit: either she got the information as claimed or she didn’t: you surely don’t think the people she got it from are going to testify that they indeed gave it to her if doing so is a crime; if it is not a crime then it really doesn’t matter if she got it from government employees as relates to Hatfill. (Although perjury might rear its head — if someone could prove she was lying. And if she is then you cannot compel her to testify against herself either.)