A 'somber' sideshow

By: Doug Cosper Globe news editor takes the 'fifth' IN hearing as court examines tab's tactics

Denver ? The mood in federal court was likened to a somber circus. Slouched at the plaintiff's table was Globe News Editor Craig Lewis, his woolly, brown, checked coat setting him apart from his three power-suited lawyers.
In the back row of the gallery sat Jeff Shapiro, Lewis' former colleague, a renegade whose taped evidence of the editor's hardball news-gathering techniques in covering the JonBenet Ramsey story is partly responsible for Lewis' day in court (E&P, July 24, p. 18).
Also looking on was Thomas Miller, a Colorado attorney clad in an Indian-style, tasseled leather jacket. Miller is under indictment for commercial bribery for allegedly introducing Lewis to a Ramsey family investigator in April 1997. That's when prosecutors say Lewis offered the investigator $30,000 in cash for a copy of the infamous JonBenet "ransom note."
Local reporters with almost three years of Ramsey coverage under their belts called the Oct. 18 hearing "a sideshow in the Ramsey circus." But some reporters listened with personal interest to the arguments before U.S. District Judge Walker Miller. At issue was the line between journalists' constitutionally protected right to gather news and the state's ability to set limits on how they do it.
Lewis is under investigation by the same Jefferson County, Colo., grand jury that indicted Miller. Along with mulling charges of commercial bribery related to the alleged ransom note offer, the citizen panel is exploring whether Lewis committed extortion stemming from his alleged heavy-handed attempt to pry Ramsey information from Steve Thomas, a former Boulder police detective.
Lewis sent Thomas personal photographs he obtained of the detective's family. Shapiro's taped telephone conversation with Lewis suggest the editor's intentions were not benign. If Thomas didn't talk, the Globe could publish stories about his family.
Attorneys for Lewis and his tabloid's publisher, Globe Communications of Boca Raton, Fla., persuaded the court Oct. 5 to intervene and temporarily halt the grand jury's investigation ? a move all parties say is unprecedented in Colorado. During the Oct. 18 hearing on whether to quash the probe permanently, Globe lawyers argued that Colorado's commercial-bribery and extortion laws are unconstitutionally vague or too broad, or both. Their application to journalists would chill legitimate news gathering.
Tom Kelley, a Denver media lawyer representing Lewis and the Globe, pointed out that Colorado's commercial-bribery law forbids a person from offering an unspecified "benefit" in exchange for information from anyone who has a duty not to disclose that information."Benefit," the Globe argued, could be anything from $30,000 to a journalist's promise of confidentiality to a source.
Dennis Hall, a Jefferson County prosecutor, admitted that whether a promise of confidentiality is a "benefit" under the law remains unclear, but he added the Globe was "overstating this case by a factor of 100."
"We don't think this [law] affects a journalist's ability to gather news at all, because we don't think these are practices journalists generally engage in," Hall said. To Kelley's claim that Lewis' anticipated indictments are unprecedented, Hall replied, "Maybe that's because no journalist has been caught doing this before."
In the day's only hint at drama, Hall called Lewis to the stand for questioning. But Lewis' attorney invoked his client's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and Lewis returned to his seat. Judge Miller then declared the issues "difficult" and postponed a decision for Oct. 28.
In a related development, JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy, last week hired L. Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based libel attorney. The couple is reportedly contemplating a lawsuit against the tabloids. Wood would not say which publications are under consideration.
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(copyright: Editor & Publisher September 11, 1999) [Caption]