Posted on 10/19/2007 5:14:08 AM PDT by radar101
In a rare move late Thursday, Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies arrested two leaders of the largest alternative newspaper chain in the nation, Villiage Voice Media, because of a story published earlier in the day by the company-owned Phoenix New Times.
Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, the executive editor and CEO, respectively, of Village Voice Media, were arrested at their homes on suspicion of violating grand jury secrecy, said sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Paul Chagolla.
The two, who together started New Times in 1970, were the authors of Thursday’s cover story revealing that a special prosecutor, retained by the county attorney’s office, had issued subpoenas to them and other staffers in a criminal case against the paper. The case stems from the paper publishing Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address more than three years ago.
Chagolla said the arrests came at the requests of the prosecutor.
In the story, titled “Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution,” Lacey and Larkin wrote “the authorities” probably believe revealing the subpoenas is against the law, “but there are moments when civil disobedience is merely the last option.”
In an interview before his arrest, Lacey said the paper would fight to quash the subpoenas. “It is just without precedent,” Lacey said. “This isn’t us overreacting.”
Also on Thursday, the sheriff’s office gave a criminal citation to Ray Stern, a New Times reporter, for disorderly conduct, Stern told the Tribune.
The reporter said he was cited at his home after an argument earlier in the day over being able to take digital photos of public records from the sheriff’s office.
Former New Times reporter John Dougherty, whose original story about Arpaio’s address sparked the controversy, said in an interview: “Were not harboring state secrets, we’re not harboring terrorists, we’re just straight up reporting on issues they don’t want us to report on.”
Reached on his cell phone, Arpaio said he was not allowed to comment on the case, adding: “You do know that I’m a victim in this whole thing.”
The paper reported earlier in the day the county wants to use grand jury subpoenas to pry into the habits of visitors to the Web site of the New Times newspaper.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, using a private attorney retained as a special prosecutor, also wants every story New Times has written about Sheriff Joe Arpaio since Jan. 1, 2004, and all the notes, tapes and records of the reporters.
Lacey said the decision to go public came after a judge revealed in a court proceeding that the special prosecutor, Dennis Wilenchik, tried to meet privately with the judge, which violates court and ethical rules. According to the story, Wilenchik had a “political operative” who is married to a deputy county attorney call the judge to arrange a meeting. In a closed-door hearing, the judge disclosed the phone call and told Wilenchik it was “absolutely inappropriate.” Lacey and Larkin said they believe the subpoenas are in response to a long history of friction between the paper and Arpaio.
“I’m not going to comment on New Times,” Arpaio told the Tribune Thursday. “You’ll have to talk to the prosecutor.”
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas also declined to comment.
In 2004, New Times published Arpaio’s home address, available in public records on the county recorder and Arizona Corporation Commission Web sites, as part of a story that raised questions about Arpaio’s real estate investments. While there is no law against putting a law enforcement official’s address in the newspaper, state law does prohibit it from being published on the Internet and Arpaio’s office has been considering filing criminal charges against New Times, Lacey and Larkin wrote.
Especially disturbing, Lacey and Larkin wrote, is that one subpoena asks for online profiles of anyone who read four specific articles about Arpaio and profiles of anyone who visited the paper’s Web site since Jan. 1, 2004. The county officials also want to track what Web users did while on the site, the story says.
Aren't these the people who scream " Invasion of Privacy" when their records are released?
That doesn’t count. They do things for the good of the country.
Arpaio is a meanie who throws innocent criminals into his tent city jail. He has the gall to enforce laws, you know.
Amendment ICongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Give them some pink underwear, Sheriff Joe, and then throw their behinds in the slammer.
I’m not too sure that the press should be getting pinched in this particular scenario. However, it appears that you believe in zero restrictions on the press. Am I reading your comment wrong?
Too bad they didn’t “resist” arrest.
for history, they have had to endure: slashed tires, garbage cans run over by cars repeatedly, protesters, pipe bombs, and a murder for hire scheme.
sorry, it might offend some here.
public officials private residences are none of your business!
shame on them!
A. A person commits unlawful grand jury disclosure if the person knowingly discloses to another the nature or substance of any grand jury testimony or any decision, result or other matter attending a grand jury proceeding, except in the proper discharge of official duties, at the discretion of the prosecutor to inform a victim of the status of the case or when permitted by the court in furtherance of justice.
B. Unlawful grand jury disclosure is a class 1 misdemeanor.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE THEM A PASS BECAUSE THEY ARE "JOURNALISTS"?
My BIL is one of the few local reporters Joe will talk to. I’ll see if he has an interview lined up with him on this topic.
Mike
For a minute I though Pinch Sulzberger was being pinched. Sadly, that is not the case.
Amen. Joe A. seems to be getting carried away with his Magnificent Self.
Guess these fools never heard of the Second Amendment. They're going to look great in pink tights!!!!!
Bingo! We have a winner. The other Anglo jurisprudences(Canada, UK, Oz) manage without them.
Somehow, in all the ebb and flow of American history, a class of lawyers has risen to power which may well destroy the system that the Founders established, and relace it with yet another version of the squalid "socialist" dictatorships that so disfigured the XXth Century.
To an outsider, it appears that American society is obsessed with trials, judges, lawsuits and all that goes with them. To this outsider, it looks a lot like the late decades of Republican Rome.
bvw needs some pink underwear as well. ;-)
..He got bludgeoned on wednesday.....:-)
If the Grand Jury process is not kept confidential, a great many innocent people, who are investigated for one reason or another, would be draged through the public mud bath, even if the Jury rules that there is no evidence to charge them with a crime.
Why would we want to make public the investigations of citizens when they are not charged?
The secrecy of the grand jury is, I would argue, to protect the innocent, as well as to allow for the orderly investigation of crimes to determine if there is sufficient evidence to charge for it.
The Grand Jury has no rights not consistent with the U.S. Constitution, and they are only a body whose job it is to decide whether sufficient evidence exists to charge a crime. In that way, they are a procedural substitute for a prosecutor’s sole judgment in charging out a crime.
They are made up of people like you and me, citizens of the republic called to serve for a time. They are not made up of lawyers and judges unless one happens to be called to serve.
The Judge is still there to supervise legal issues and to determine if search warrants may be issued.
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