Opinion ID: 1210885
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Applicability of Reportorial Privilege to Criminal Proceedings

Text: In our prior decision of State ex rel. Hudok v. Henry, 182 W.Va. 500, 389 S.E.2d 188 (1989), we recognized the existence of a reportorial privilege in the context of an administrative hearing. The underlying facts of Hudok centered around the discharge of Linda Butner from her position as clerk of the Magistrate Court of Jefferson County. In April, 1989, Ms. Butner was interviewed by newspaper reporter Ron Hudok with respect to a search, pursuant to a search warrant, of her home. [6] Approximately one month later, Ms. Butner was placed on administrative leave and was interviewed by another newspaper reporter, Beth Traubert. 182 W.Va. at 501, 389 S.E.2d at 189. The second published interview recounted Ms. Butner's appearance at a meeting of the Jefferson County Commission at which time she complained that the sheriff was attempting to set her up as a drug pusher. Id. On June 6, 1989, the Honorable Thomas W. Steptoe, Jr., Judge of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, discharged Ms. Butner; she thereafter requested an administrative hearing to protest her firing. 182 W.Va. at 501-02, 389 S.E.2d at 189-90. During an evidentiary hearing, Judge Steptoe subpoenaed both newspaper reporters and a radio reporter, Natasha Singh, [7] in support of his decision to remove Ms. Butner from her position as Magistrate Court clerk. 182 W.Va. at 502, 389 S.E.2d at 190. Ms. Traubert was subsequently released from her subpoena, but reporters Hudok and Singh both refused to respond to questioning, each asserting a First Amendment news-gathering privilege. Id. The reporters, having been held in civil contempt for their refusal to testify, applied to this Court for a determination of the validity of their asserted privilege. Id. Deciding that such a news-gathering privilege does exist in West Virginia, we noted the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972). Although the Branzburg Court concluded that a reporter could not claim such a privilege upon being subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, the accompanying concurring opinion and dual dissenting opinions have since been construed by other courts as suggesting that a qualified news reporter's privilege does exist outside of the facts presented in Branzburg. See, e.g., In Re Petroleum Prod. Antitrust Litig., 680 F.2d 5 (2d Cir.) (per curiam) (reportorial privilege may be asserted in response to court-ordered disclosure of confidential news sources), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 909, 103 S.Ct. 215, 74 L.Ed.2d 171 (1982); United States v. Cuthbertson (Cuthbertson I), 630 F.2d 139 (3d Cir.1980) (reportorial privilege may be asserted in response to subpoena duces tecum), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1126, 101 S.Ct. 945, 67 L.Ed.2d 113 (1981); O'Neill v. Oakgrove Constr., Inc., 71 N.Y.2d 521, 523 N.E.2d 277, 528 N.Y.S.2d 1 (1988) (reportorial privilege may be asserted in response to court-ordered disclosure of nonconfidential news information (photographs)). Consistent with other jurisdictions recognizing such a privilege, we held, in Syllabus Point 1, that a reportorial privilege exists in West Virginia: To protect the important public interest of reporters in their news-gathering functions under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, disclosure of a reporter's confidential sources or news-gathering materials may not be compelled except upon a clear and specific showing that the information is highly material and relevant, necessary or critical to the maintenance of the claim, and not obtainable from other available sources. Hudok, 182 W.Va. 500, 389 S.E.2d 188. We further adopted the general rule ... that a qualified First Amendment privilege is available to the news-gathering material whether confidential, published, or not published. 182 W.Va. at 505, 389 S.E.2d at 193. Based upon this decision, we overturned the reporters' contempt citations. Id. Notwithstanding our decision in Hudok establishing a reportorial privilege in this State, the case presently before us is factually distinguishable. While Hudok involved an administrative hearing, the instant petition concerns proceedings preliminary to a criminal trial. Given this procedural posture, we note at the outset the competing constitutional protections implicated in this case. On the one hand, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 7 of Article III of the West Virginia Constitution guarantee freedom of speech and press. [8] On the other hand, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 14 of Article III of the West Virginia Constitution ensure that a criminal defendant will have a fair trial. [9] The United States Supreme Court has addressed these competing interests and has determined that both the right to a free press and the right to a fair trial are equally important: The authors of the Bill of Rights did not undertake to assign priorities as between First Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights, ranking one as superior to the other.... [I]f the authors of these guarantees, fully aware of the potential conflicts between them, were unwilling or unable to resolve the issue by assigning to one priority over the other, it is not for us to rewrite the Constitution by undertaking what they declined to do. It is unnecessary, after nearly two centuries, to establish a priority applicable in all circumstances. Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 561, 96 S.Ct. 2791, 2803-04, 49 L.Ed.2d 683, 699 (1976). That is not to say, however, that: [a] defendant's sixth amendment and due process rights ... are ... irrelevant when a journalists' privilege is asserted. But rather than affecting the existence of the qualified privilege, we think that these rights are important factors that must be considered in deciding whether, in the circumstances of an individual case, the privilege must yield to the defendant's need for the information. Cuthbertson I, 630 F.2d at 147. Considering the coequal interests presented by the instant petition, we deem it necessary to refine the reportorial privilege we earlier announced in Hudok as it applies to the specific facts of the criminal case before us. [10] Here, respondent West seeks unpublished photographs obtained by the relators in connection with their published stories describing the crime scene and surrounding circumstances of the first degree murder and arson with which respondent West is charged. In Hudok, we required a clear and specific showing that the information is [1] highly material and relevant, [2] necessary or critical to the maintenance of the claim, and [3] not obtainable from other available sources before disclosure of a reporter's news-gathering materials could be compelled. Syl. pt. 1, in part, 182 W.Va. 500, 389 S.E.2d 188. The relator newspapers both contend that respondent West has failed to make a showing that the requested photographs are highly material and relevant and necessary or critical to his defense. Respondent West responds that the photographs may have been taken from a different angle or at a different time than those already in his possession thereby providing exculpatory evidence. West also alleges that the newspapers' unpublished photographs may reveal tampering of the evidence since the photographs actually published by the relators are the only pictures showing police officers handling evidence at the crime scene. The relators reply that West's speculative assertions do not satisfy the clear and specific showing required by Hudok. While we decline to determine whether, in fact, the unpublished photographs would be highly material and relevant and necessary or critical to the respondent's defense, we do recognize the difficulty faced by respondent West in making such a showing. The Hudok standard requires the requesting party to make a clear and specific showing in order to obtain qualifiedly privileged information, yet the requestor often is unable to make such a showing since he/she has not yet seen the requested material. Although we do not condone a fishing expedition approach to this quandary, we do realize the need to devise a standard more considerate of the requesting party's uncertainty as to the true nature of the information requested. Accordingly, we hold that when a criminal defendant seeks from a news source unpublished, nonconfidential information, he/ she must show with particularity that: (1) the requested information is highly material and relevant to the defendant's articulated theory or theories of his/her defense; (2) the requested information is necessary or critical to the defendant's assertion of his/her articulated theory or theories of defense; and (3) the requested information is not obtainable from other available sources. We hold further that the particularity with which the defendant must satisfy this balancing test contemplates some explanation by the defendant as to what information he/she expects the media material to contain. A mere bald assertion, standing alone, that the allegedly privileged information satisfies the requisite criteria will not suffice. [11] Faced with a similar criminal case, in which the defendant sought a newspaper's unpublished photographs of his arrest, the Supreme Court of Minnesota established an additional requirement to ensure the appropriate balancing of the media's right to a free press and the defendant's right to a fair trial. In State v. Turner, 550 N.W.2d 622 (1996), the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that the [trial] court should perform an in camera review of all unpublished photographs of [the defendant] and the police officers in the possession of [the newspaper] and only release those which would be relevant to [the defendant's] defense theory, as defined by his attorneys. Id. at 629. In establishing the in camera review requirement, the Court stated: We believe that concerns of overburdening the news media justify the implementation of an in camera procedure for reviewing unpublished information, including photographs, before forcing a news organization to disclose information in its possession to a litigant. If a litigant asserts that unpublished information or photographs possessed by a newspaper may be relevant to his or her case, in camera review by the [trial] court is an appropriate means of balancing the defendant's need for evidence to support his or her claims against the public's interest in a free and independent press. Id. (citations omitted). See also United States v. Cuthbertson (Cuthbertson II), 651 F.2d 189, 198 (3d Cir.) (Seitz, C.J., concurring) (advocating in camera review of allegedly privileged materials requested by subpoena in order to obtain an impartial determination of whether the documents contain material that is producible under the subpoena and, in the case of a qualified privilege, whether such material is subject to disclosure under an appropriate balancing test), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1056, 102 S.Ct. 604, 70 L.Ed.2d 594 (1981). We believe the approach adopted by the Minnesota high court to be a sound method of protecting both respondent West's right to a fair trial and the relator newspapers' right to a free press. Therefore, once a criminal defendant has shown with particularity that the unpublished, nonconfidential information requested from a news source satisfies the three-part threshold balancing test, the circuit court shall conduct an in camera review of the requested material and release to the defendant only that information which the court deems to be relevant to the defendant's articulated theory or theories of defense. Additionally, as we previously have required in other contexts, a circuit court, subsequent to performing the three-part threshold balancing test pursuant to a criminal defendant's request for unpublished, nonconfidential information from a news source and, in the appropriate circumstances, the ensuing in camera review, shall make specific written findings of fact. [12] These findings are a particularly valuable inclusion in the appellate record as we generally defer to the circuit court's evidentiary rulings. See, e.g., In Interest of Tiffany Marie S., 196 W.Va. 223, 234, 470 S.E.2d 177, 188 (1996) (stating that this Court will interfere with a circuit court's ruling on evidentiary matters only if [a party] demonstrates an abuse of the circuit court's substantial discretion (citation omitted)); Gentry v. Mangum, 195 W.Va. 512, 518, 466 S.E.2d 171, 177 (1995) (reciting that a reviewing court gives special deference to the evidentiary rulings of a circuit court (footnote omitted)).