Posted on 07/12/2002 5:11:08 PM PDT by HAL9000
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jul 12, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A judge on Friday rejected a freelance reporter's effort to avoid testifying about his videotaped interview with American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan last year.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled that journalists don't enjoy a First Amendment privilege to avoid testifying except in very limited circumstances involving protection of confidential sources or harassment.
His ruling means that for the time being freelance reporter Robert Pelton is required to testify next week at Lindh's pretrial hearing.
While refusing to grant Pelton's request to reverse his subpoena, Ellis said that before Pelton is called, he will re-evaluate whether the reporter's testimony is still needed after other witnesses appear.
Lindh's lawyers subpoenaed Pelton, arguing he was essentially acting as an agent of the U.S. government when he interviewed Lindh at a U.S. military hospital after Lindh was captured.
The lawyers argue Lindh therefore should have been read his Miranda rights. The lawyers noted that Pelton brought a U.S. Special Forces medic along when he interviewed Lindh. Pelton also offered to have that medic treat Lindh's wounds.
Pelton has denied claims he was acting as an agent of the government, and his lawyers argued that his safety and his ability to gather news as an independent journalist would be harmed if he were forced to testify.
Several news organizations joined Pelton in his effort to overturn the subpoena.
But Ellis rejected Pelton's claim he would be harmed by being forced to testify.
"It isn't the subpoena that puts him in danger," Ellis said. "It is the argument that the defendant makes and he has a right to make that argument."
Pelton, a freelancer working for CNN, interviewed Lindh in December at a prison hospital in Sheberghan, Afghanistan. In the interview, which the government plans to present as evidence at Lindh's trial, Lindh discusses how and why he joined the Taliban, saying his "heart became attached to the (Taliban) movement."
"I wanted to help them one way or another," he said.
Lindh's lawyers say the interview, conducted while a ragged-looking Lindh was suffering from hypothermia and gunshot wounds, "focused directly on Mr. Lindh's relationship with the Afghan army, the key issues underlying the government's indictment."
Lindh's lawyers are also seeking to suppress statements Lindh made to a variety of U.S. investigators following his capture last year. A hearing on the issue is scheduled to begin Monday.
Ellis and Lindh's attorney, James Brosnahan, squared off testily during Friday's hearing over procedures at next week's hearing, which will be critical to Lindh's fate.
Ellis told Brosnahan that he would have to limit the use of audiovisual material during next week's hearing to keep the hearing from dragging on longer than a week. Brosnahan objected, and the confrontation escalated until Ellis angrily ordered Brosnahan to sit down.
"You're not going to present this as if it were some type of show-biz operation," Ellis said.
Brosnahan said he had never encountered such restrictions in his 43 years of practice.
"We are fighting for this young man," Brosnahan said. "There is no show business here."
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
Consider the implication of "protection of sources."Suppose that a special prosecutor was investigating someone, and that someone tactically leaked information prejudicial to himself, and accused the prosecutor of illegally doing so. The reporter to whom the information is leaked would know that the prosecutor was innocent; should he be allowed to "protect his source" when it means that the innocent is made to look guilty?
Damn straight, I want Johnny's case to proceed with rigorous adherence to the laws of this nation.
And then I want to see him shot.
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