Arkansas Supreme Court Hears Reporter Privilege Case

By: A skeptical Arkansas Supreme Court today questioned how reporters could be sued over stories based on police files.

Lawyers for Ryan Whiteside argued that reporters at The Courier newspaper of Russellville rushed to publish details of an inadvertently obtained police report.

The report named Whiteside in an alleged 2006 rape.

Lawyers for the newspaper say the articles were covered under the "fair report privilege."

Whiteside attorney H. Clay Moore of Houston asked justices to allow a lawsuit by his client to continue against The Courier.

Moore said the newspaper only wanted the story because it involved Whiteside and Kevin Jones. Both found beauty queen Nona Dirksmeyer dead a year earlier. A jury later acquitted Jones of capital murder in Dirksmeyer's slaying.

Jones, the beauty queen's ex-boyfriend, was free on $250,000 bond the night of the party where a woman later told police she had been raped.