Journalists Punished for Disobeying Courts: a History

By: Associated Press Staff (AP) Journalists over the last 13 years who have gone to jail or faced fines rather than reveal information demanded by the courts:

* 1991: James Campbell of the Houston Chronicle and Felix Sanchez of the Houston Post fined a total of $500 for refusing to identify sources. A federal judge reversed the decision.

* 1992: Susan Smallheer and the Rutland (Vt.) Herald fined a total of $2,000 per day, plus $4,000 in government legal fees, for seeking an interview with an escaped convict. On appeal, the state high court ruled the fines were improper.

* 1994: Lisa Abraham, a newspaper reporter from Warren, Ohio, jailed for 22 days for refusing to testify before a state grand jury about a jailhouse interview.

* 1996: Minnesota Daily, a university newspaper, fined $500 for refusing to turn over photos.

* 1996: Bruce Anderson of Ukiah, Calif., editor of the Anderson Valley Independent, jailed for 13 days for refusing to turn over original letter to the editor received from a prisoner. After a week, he tried to comply, but the judge refused to believe it was the original letter because it was typed. After another week, the judge accepted that it was the original.

* 1996: Miami Herald reporter David Kidwell of Palm Beach County, Fla., sentenced to 70 days and fined $500 for refusing to testify about a jailhouse interview. He served 14 days before being released.

* 2000: Sacramento Valley Mirror Editor and Publisher Timothy Crews of Red Bluff, Calif., served a five-day sentence for refusing to reveal his confidential sources in a story involving a state patrol officer's sale of an allegedly stolen firearm.

* 2001: Author Vanessa Leggett of Houston, jailed for 168 days by federal judge for refusing to disclose her research for a crime book and the identities of her sources to a federal grand jury investigating a murder. Leggett was freed after the grand jury's term expired. A subsequent grand jury indicted the key suspect in the murder without her testimony.

Source: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.