By: (AP) News organizations, including
The (McAllen)
Monitor and The Associated Press, plan to challenge a judge's order barring them from contacting jurors in a case involving a South Texas family and Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.
U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela Wednesday ordered that individuals could not contact jurors without submitting a written application and receiving specific approval from the court.
Jim Hemphill of Austin, an attorney for the AP, said the news organization will ask Vela to vacate the decision on Friday. "We understand and respect Judge Vela's desire to protect the jurors in this case, but we think this particular order goes a little bit too far," he said.
Ray Stafford, publisher of
The Monitor, said Vela's order exercises prior restraint on the press. "I think the judge needs to reread the Constitution," he said.
Vela told the newspaper on Thursday that jurors were being bothered and intimidated. He would not elaborate.
"I'm not denying contact," Vela said, "I left it up to the jurors. But I'm not going to tolerate them being in any way disturbed. They're going to be protected."
Bridgestone/Firestone settled the case with the Rodriguez family for a reported $7.5 million last week as a federal court jury began its fourth day of deliberations in the first case to go to trial since a massive Firestone tire recall.
The panel had been considering whether Bridgestone/Firestone or Ford Motor Co. were responsible for the March 2000 crash of a Ford Explorer that left Marisa Rodriguez, a 39-year-old mother of three, brain-damaged. Ford was not a defendant in the case.
When the settlement was announced, Vela recommended that jurors not talk to reporters about the case, saying it would affect pending lawsuits. He also sealed the jurors' names.
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