Law Commons^™

Protect The Press: A First Amendment Standard For Safeguarding Aggressive Newsgathering, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

Few occu.pations or professions rank lower than reporters in public esteem. In July 1999, Justice Stephen Breyer participated as a panelist at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and was challenged by Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch about the absence of cameras in the Supreme Court. Justice Breyer explained that the Court did not want to risk its relatively high level of public esteem by placing itself on television. Justice Breyer noted the lack of respect for the media and said that the Court did not want to see its esteem ratings lowered to that of the press.

Rethinking Reporter's Privilege, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Michigan Law Review

Forty years ago, in Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court made its first and only inquiry into the constitutional protection of the relationship between a reporter and a confidential source. This case - decided at a moment in American history in which the role of an investigative press, and of information provided by confidential sources, was coming to the forefront of public consciousness in a new and significant way - produced a reporter-focused "privilege" that is now widely regarded to be both doctrinally questionable and deeply inconsistent in application. Although the post-Branzburg privilege has been recognized as flawed in a …

First Amendment Investigations And The Inescapable Pragmatism Of The Common Law Of Free Speech, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

Scholars have struggled to explain our sprawling First Amendment doctrine – once described by Justice Stevens as “an elaborate mosaic of specific judicial decisions, characteristic of the common law process of case-by-case adjudication.” The position that has gained the most traction in recent scholarship has stressed the primacy of governmental motive – this school of thought argues that the degree of scrutiny to be afforded a challenged regulation is based on an assessment of the likelihood that the regulation reflects a governmental motive to burden disfavored speech or speakers.

This article offers a challenge to the purposivist account. It begins, …

A House Divided: Earl Caldwell, The New York Times, And The Quest For A Testimonial Privilege, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

In the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not protect journalists who refuse to reveal their confidential sources or news gathering product in response to a federal grand jury subpoena. That decision has remained vital for 35 years and has reverberated through a number of recent high-profile cases. Despite some form of protection in nearly every state court, reporters haled before a federal judge may have no recourse save prison. Devastating as Branzburg has been for the so-called journalist's privilege, its negative impact has been far broader. Branzburg is one of …

The Reporter's Privilege In Arkansas: An Overview With Commentary, Philip S. Anderson

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200: The Reporter's Privilege Today, Douglas E. Lee

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Déjà Vu All Over Again: How A Generation Of Gains In The Federal Reporter's Privilege Law Is Being Reversed, Lucy A. Dalglish, Casey Murray

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Concerto The Without Sheet Music: Revisiting The Debate Over First Amendment Protection For Information Gathering, Anthony L. Fargo

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Trial Judge's Rumination On The Reporter's Privilege, Susan Webber Wright

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Open Season On The Journalist's Privilege: Do Recent Rulings Represent A Trend Against Assertions Of The Privilege Or Proper Applications Of Existing Law?, Will E. Messer

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Protect The Press: A First Amendment Standard For Safeguarding Aggressive Newsgathering, Erwin Chemerinsky

University of Richmond Law Review

Few occu.pations or professions rank lower than reporters in public esteem. In July 1999, Justice Stephen Breyer participated as a panelist at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and was challenged by Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch about the absence of cameras in the Supreme Court. Justice Breyer explained that the Court did not want to risk its relatively high level of public esteem by placing itself on television. Justice Breyer noted the lack of respect for the media and said that the Court did not want to see its esteem ratings lowered to that of the press.

"Dancing In The Courthouse": The First Amendment Right Of Access Opens A New Round, Eugene Cerruti

University of Richmond Law Review

Shortly after World War II, concern mounted over the government's ability and tendency to institutionalize secrecy in government. The initial concern was with the anti-communist sleuthing of various legislative bodies which dramatized the power of secretly held information to control the public agenda of both domestic and foreign policy debate. From this emerged the call for a more "open" government and the political claim that the electorate had a "right to know"' the information acquired and relied upon by government officials. For the press in particular, "access" increasingly became the watchword, the icon, of the new era. The mounting pressure …

The Supreme Court And The Not-So-Privileged Press, John D. Epps

University of Richmond Law Review

The first amendment mandates freedom of the press, but the extent of that freedom has been the issue in scores of Supreme Court opinions. Whether press freedom is above and beyond that provided the general public by the first amendment has been a fertile question for debate. The question is more than academic, however; its answer has determined, for example, that reporters must be jailed for refusing to comply with subpoenas and that newsrooms can be searched for evidence of criminal activities.

Branzburg V. Hayes: A Need For Statutory Protection Of News Sources, Richard E. Anderson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.