Journal, Gazette and Post Prepare for Shield Law Appeal

In the first case presented to any Maryland appeals court on the merits of the Maryland shield law since 1984, The Prince George’s Journal, The Washington Post and Gazette Newspapers, will argue that the Maryland shield law and the First Amendment qualified privilege were correctly applied to protect their reporters from testifying in a disciplinary hearing against Prince George’s Police Officer Brian Lott.

Summonses to the reporters were ordered withdrawn by a lower court in February. An appeal of that decision will be heard by the Court of Special Appeals and lawyers for the newspapers predict that the Court will be asked to consider new issues. The Post’s lawyer, Kevin Hardy, has notified the court that he intends to discuss whether the constitutional privilege is broader than the Maryland shield law. I am representing Journal Newspapers, and I have notified the court that Journal Newspapers will ask whether the shield law will protect a reporter from cross-examination once published information has been verified.

Officer Lott was charged with unbecoming conduct under the Police Department’s General Order Manual, based on the allegation that he made a particular remark outside a courtroom at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt. Lott and other county police officers were attending the trial of two police officers charged with releasing their police dogs on two homeless men when the use of force was not necessary.

Lott’s remark was reported in The Prince George’s Journal on August 14, 2001, and in The Washington Post on the same day. In The Journal reported the remark as, "I wish I’d have been there in ’95, I would have shot the bastards and we wouldn’t have had any of this crap."   According to The Post’s story, Lott was in a group of supporters for the police defendants and made the remark loudly enough for anyone in the courtroom vestibule to hear.

The Prince George’s Legal Affairs Office, charged with prosecuting Lott, issued summonses’ to three reporters, Eric Hartley of the Journal, Ruben Castaneda of The Post, and Greg Johnson of Gazette, to appear at an administrative board hearing on Feb. 27, 2002. All three reporters resisted providing the testimony to verify their published reports, but Hartley offered an affidavit to confirm that his published report accurately reflected what he had heard at the courthouse that day in August.

The reporters’ motions to quash the summonses were heard by Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Larnzell Martin on Feb. 26th.

At that hearing, the essential argument offered by the county was that there were no alternative sources who heard the remark. According to county legal affairs attorney Deborah Buie, no other officers verified the quote after an order was issued by the police department requiring witnesses to step forward. Buie also argued that she needed the reporters’ testimony to support the stories they had published in their newspapers. She said that Hartley’s affidavit was not sufficient.

Attorneys for the newspapers argued that the call for the reporters’ testimony would inevitably lead to the demand for unpublished information. Appearing for Officer Lott, defense counsel Steve Sunday said he would have "200 questions" for the newspaper reporters on cross-examination, including questions about their biases.

Judge Martin discussed the legal issues with all four attorneys during oral argument and had obviously worked very hard in preparation for the hearing. He said during the hearing that he had considered whether he could limit the questions to the reporters, but decided instead to rule against the county’s demand for the testimony.

Buie filed the appeal to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on the same day Martin ordered the summonses withdrawn.

St. Mary's Publisher's Lawsuit Against Sheriff Dismissed

Kenneth C. Rossignol, publisher of St. Mary’s Today, alleged in the suit that on Nov. 3, 1998, the seven deputies violated his First Amendment rights by buying more than 1,300 copies of his weekly newspaper that contained articles critical of Sheriff Richard J. Voorhaar and state attorney candidate Richard D. Fritz.

Voorhaar and Fritz each paid the deputies $500 to buy the newspapers, according to a Feb. 21 opinion by U.S. District Judge Earnest H. Nickerson in Greenbelt. Rossignol and his attorneys, however, did not prove that the deputies acted in their official capacity as police officers when they bought the newspapers, Nickerson said in dismissing the suit.

Ashley I. Kissinger, Rossignol’s attorney, said she is considering taking the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sgt. Michael R. Merican, head of the sheriff’s internal affairs unit and a defendant in the lawsuit, said, "We’ve contended throughout this whole ordeal that we were not in violation of any law and that we certainly were not in violation of Mr. Rossignol’s civil rights."

- The Washington Post