Opinion ID: 1509698
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Maryland Shield Law

Text: In 1896, Maryland became the first State to enact a shield law, a statutory privilege which allows a newsgatherer to decline to reveal sources of information. The statute was prompted by a specific event: in early 1896, John T. Morris, a Baltimore Sun reporter, published an article suggesting that certain elected officials and policemen were on the payrolls of illegal gambling establishments. His article contained information practically identical to testimony received earlier by a grand jury investigating such corruption. Suspecting a leak, the grand jury summoned Morris and demanded to know his source. When he refused, he was imprisoned; he was released when the grand jury's term expired some five days later. The Journalists' Club, alarmed at the prospect of reporters having to choose between freedom and revealing the names of confidential sources, persuaded the General Assembly to enact protective legislation. See ch. 249 of the Acts of 1896, and B. Bortz & L. Bortz, Pressing Out The Wrinkles In Maryland's Shield Law For Journalists, 8 U. Balt. L. Rev. 461 (1979). [1] Although Maryland's shield law has served as a model for other states which have enacted such laws, case law interpreting the statute has been sparse, especially considering its eighty-seven year history. In State v. Sheridan, 248 Md. 320, 236 A.2d 18 (1967), an investigative reporter for a national broadcast network was subpoenaed to testify before a Montgomery County grand jury and asked to reveal the details of his conversation with a source. Although Sheridan freely admitted the identity of his source to the grand jury, he asserted a newspaperman's privilege not to testify as to the information obtained, which the trial judge sustained. On appeal, we concluded that the issue was moot, since the grand jury's term had expired. We nevertheless said in dictum: Although [the trial judge] found as a fact, entirely justifiably we think, that Sheridan `obtained certain information in the form of a conversation with Mr. Patrick    [and] that he divulged the source of the conversation to the Grand Jury,' he sustained Sheridan's claim that his `newspaperman's privilege' of never violating a confidence allowed him to remain silent as to the details of the information Patrick had given him, and dismissed the petition, somewhat inexplicably to us, since the statute makes inviolate only `the source of any news or information' and not the `news or information' itself. Id. at 321-22, 236 A.2d at 19. The Maryland shield law was next considered in Lightman v. State, 15 Md. App. 713, 294 A.2d 149, aff'd per curiam, 266 Md. 550, 295 A.2d 212 (1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 951 (1973). In that case, Lightman, a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun, was summoned before a Worcester County Grand Jury to testify concerning illegal drug activities in Ocean City which, according to his published article, he had personally witnessed. Questioned as to the location of these illegal activities, Lightman refused to answer on the ground that such information would lead to disclosure of his sources in violation of the protection afforded by the shield law. He was cited for contempt and appealed. The Court of Special Appeals noted that, at common law, neither the reporter's source nor the information obtained was privileged. After discussing cases construing similar statutes in other jurisdictions, the court concluded that a promise of confidentiality was not necessary under the Maryland shield law to allow a newsman to protect his sources: The statute, on its face, does not purport to protect a newsman from disclosing only such sources of news or information published by him that was received in the course of a confidential newsman-informant relationship. On the contrary, while the Legislature may have enacted the statute with the primary purpose in mind of protecting the identity of newsmen's confidential sources, we think the statutory privilege broad enough to encompass any source of news or information, without regard to whether the source gave his information in confidence or not. Consequently, it is for the newsman to determine whether he will disclose the `source' of his news or information, and such disclosure cannot be compelled by requiring that he answer questions aimed, directly or indirectly, toward ascertaining the source's identity. Id. at 724-25, 294 A.2d at 156 (emphasis in original). The court concluded that under the facts of the case Lightman was not protected by the shield law: Where a newsman, by dint of his own investigative efforts, personally observes conduct constituting the commission of criminal activities by persons at a particular location, the newsman, and not the persons observed, is the `source' of the news or information in the sense contemplated by the statute. To conclude otherwise in such circumstances would be to insulate the news itself from disclosure and not merely the source, a result plainly at odds with the Maryland law espoused in dictum in Sheridan. We think Sheridan correctly interprets the Maryland statute, particularly since, being in derogation of the common law, it requires a strict construction. Id. at 725, 294 A.2d at 156-57. The court observed that, unlike the Maryland statute, the shield laws of some other states explicitly protect information obtained by a reporter as well as the source of the information. As to this, the court said: If the newsman's testimonial privilege is to be broadened, as in New York, to cover disclosure of `any news or the source of any such news' ..., it can only be done by the Legislature. Id. at 726, 294 A.2d at 157.