SAN DIEGO REPORTER SURRENDERS NOTES

By: Randy Dotinga Jail Sentence Wasn't Worth It, He Says



With quiet reluctance, a San Diego newspaper reporter decided today
that a lone stand for journalistic principle isn't worth many months
behind bars.



With a jail sentence looming, San Diego Union-Tribune reporter
J. Harry Jones agreed to summarize the unpublished notes from a
jailhouse interview he had with a murder suspect.



Jones' decision, which was supported by the newspaper, brought an end
to a case in which justice and journalism collided.



Last September, Jones - who covers San Diego's main county
courthouse - interviewed a murder suspect named Jacob Henderson.



In the interview, Henderson recanted a confession he had made to police
in which he admitted killing three men in 1990 and 1991. Jones then
wrote an article that was published in November when Henderson faced a
court hearing.



Prosecutors have since decided to seek the death penalty in Henderson's
case. Last month, his defense attorney demanded to see the unpublished
notes from the interview.



Superior Court Judge John Thompson agreed and ordered Jones to produce
the notes. The Union-Tribune convinced the judge to allow Jones
several days to appeal, arguing that Jones should not be made an 'arm
of the state.'



California does have a 'shield law' that protects journalists from
having to give up material or the names of confidential sources. The
law is one of the broadest in the country.



'There may be one or two or three others that are more press-friendly
than California's, but we're in the top tier,' said Tom Newton, general
counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association.



Even so, the state supreme court has ruled that the federal
constitutional right to a fair trial supersedes the rights of
journalists. In a widely publicized case earlier this year, a Northern
California editor spent five days in jail because he refused to give up
the name of a source.



Both a state appeal court and the California Supreme Court refused to
intervene in Jones' case. At a hearing today, Jones had to either give
up the notes or face a jail term that could have lasted until the end
of Henderson's trial, which is not scheduled to begin until February
2000.



Jones chose to provide a written summary of his unpublished notes. The
judge accepted them, despite an objection from a defense attorney who
wanted to see the notes themselves.



The summary, reprinted on the Union-Tribune Web site, included Jones'
recollections of exact quotes and paraphrases from the interview. Among
other things, Jones quotes Henderson as saying, 'I'm a good guy,
actually. Things just happened, you know. I mean, people break the law
every day.'



Jones said his choice did not come easily. He has worked at the
Union-Tribune for 14 years and is a third-generation reporter.



His grandfather and father were both reporters at the Kansas City
Star. His father, Harry Jones, was one of the original members of
Investigative Reporters and Editors and worked on the Arizona Project,
the famous attempt to investigate the murder of Arizona Republic
reporter Don Bolles.



Jones said his father helped him with advice on what to do about the
contempt-of-court citation.



'This was my decision,' Jones told a pack of reporters gathered outside
the courtroom. 'I have a family and going to jail for a year or two
would be too much to ask.'



The situation would have been different if he had been asked to give up
a source, Jones said. 'The bottom line is that my notes do not contain
any confidential information. They're basically leftover notes.'



Even so, Jones considers them to be 'work product' that belongs to the
newspaper, not the court.



'I'm supposed to be a watchdog over the judicial system, and what they
want to do is make me a tool of it by using my notes... That's not what
we're supposed to be all about.'