Reporter's shield laws

[Tim May]

On Sunday, August 26, 2001, at 09:02 AM, David Honig wrote:

> At 06:12 PM 8/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> I agree that John Young should be considered a reporter. And also a
> ...
>
>> Still, I think it's possible to differentiate between people involved
>> or
>> suspected of being involved in a criminal act (Clinton, Tripp, Condit,
>> perhaps Vinnie, in your example) and neutral observers and
>> commentators.
>
> Ho-ho, but JY is a known subscriber/contributor to the same Conspiracy
> List
> as JB, CJ, etc.  (As are you..)  Ergo, a sufficiently rabid
> [per|pro]secutor
> could strip you of your 'neutrality'.  (What's to stop Vinnie from
> starting a website covering the Mob to gain journalists' protections?)
> What's to stop a prosecutor for arguing that a journalist who publishes
> mostly in, e.g., lefty mags is not part of the Conspiracy du jour?
>
> What you and Tim ought to consider IMHO is that the 5th amendment's
> protection
> against self-incrimination protects everyone, and journalists don't need
> 'special' status under such a reading.

Except that all it takes is for the judge to grant the witness
transactional or use immunity. Or even full immunity (less common, from
what I hear).

"Mr. McCullagh, the court hereby grants you transactional immunity for
your testimony today. Now Mr. McCullagh, please answer the prosecutors
questions and give the court all of your notes made regarding this
witness."

Much on the Net. Here's just a flavoring:

"Title 18 U.S.C. ' 6002 provides use immunity instead of transactional
immunity. The difference between transactional and use immunity is that
transactional immunity protects the witness from prosecution for the
offense or offenses involved, whereas use immunity only protects the
witness against the government's use of his or her immunized testimony
in a prosecution of the witness -- except in a subsequent prosecution
for perjury or giving a false statement.



Tim again: I'm not a lawyer, but I read about cases like this. And there
were dozens of hours of discussion about use immunity, transactional
immunity, etc. during recent high-profile televised cases.

The notion that a witness can blithely escape having to testify by
asserting the 5th Amendment is one of those folk beliefs that just
doesn't hold up.


--Tim May