Court Opinion

ID: 9462953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:54:11.295073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:51.473695
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding.
In the instant case it is conceded that the reporters did not acquire the information sought to be elicited from them on a confidential basis; one of them (Steelhammer) so testified in the district court. My study of the record fails to turn up even a scintilla of evidence that the reporters were subpoenaed to harass them or to embarrass their newsgathering abilities at any future public meetings that the miners might hold. It therefore seems to me that, in the balancing of interests suggested by Mr. Justice Powell in his concurring opinion in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 709, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 LEd.2d 626 (1972), the absence of a claim of confidentiality and the lack of evidence of vindictiveness tip the scale to the conclusion that the district court was correct in requiring the reporters to testify. These absences convert the majority’s conclusion into a broad holding that journalists called as witnesses in civil cases have a privilege to refuse to testify about all events they have observed in their professional capacity if other witnesses to the same events are available, despite the avowal that the holding is limited to the facts of the case.
The only contentions advanced at the trial, in the briefs and at oral argument to support this broad result are to me factually or legally unacceptable. First, the journalists themselves argued from the witness stand that by testifying they would appear to the miners to be “taking sides,” and would therefore incur the miners’ enmity and lose their trust, “cutting their throats journalistically.” To accept this reasoning it would be necessary to ignore the entire history of the origin of testimonial compulsion.
*377Early in the development of the common law, witnesses could not be compelled to appear. Indeed, they were discouraged from testifying in private disputes, for if they did so — voluntarily — they would be accused of attempting to influence the outcome in favor of the party whom their testimony helped, and could be subject to a suit for the tort of maintenance. While this situation appears strange today, it is more readily understandable if it is recalled that generally jurors and witnesses were the same persons.
It became apparent, however, that the fact-finding process suffered because of the unwillingness of potential witnesses with relevant information to make themselves available out of fear of being accused of maintenance. Thus, the concept of testimonial compulsion was evolved to solve the problem, according to the maxim, “what a man does by compulsion of law cannot be called maintenance.” See VII J. Wigmore, Evidence, § 2190 at 63-65 (1961). Plainly, then, a modern witness does not “take sides” by testifying under court order, but rather performs his civic duty; and it is imperative that all citizens understand this principle. I would not readily charge the miners with ignorance of the journalists’ obligations, nor would I presume that the miners would scorn the journalists for respecting these obligations.
Second, it is urged that notwithstanding the nonconfidential character of the information sought from the reporters, compelling them to testify about their observations at the miners’ meetings would as a practical matter result in the closing of future meetings to outsiders and the exclusion of reporters, impeding the journalists’ ability to gather news of the coal strike, in violation of the first amendment. Presumably, this action would be taken by the miners in order to render more difficult the coal operators’ task in obtaining witnesses to use against them in further court proceedings.
While I can think of no logical reason to suppose that the journalists will be denied admission to secret meetings on a confidential basis because of the outcome of this case which does not involve confidential communications or observations,* even if the miners conclude to close future meetings to journalists, along with other outsiders generally, I do not think that any legal rights of the journalists would be violated. Of course, the journalists seize upon the Supreme Court’s statement in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. at 707, 92 S.Ct. at 2670, that “news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections” in support of their position, and argue that they have a first amendment right to be present and to report what transpires. But, whatever the implications of the Branzburg dictum may have been, they must be qualified in light of Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1964). In that case, journalists challenged a regulation of the California Department of Corrections which prohibited interviews with specific individual inmates by persons other than their lawyers, clergymen, relatives, and prior acquaintances. In upholding the regulation, the Court observed that it did not discriminate against journalists, but merely failed to afford to them a right lawfully withheld from other members of the public.
The Court quoted Branzburg, 408 U.S. at 784, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 2658, for the proposition that “[i]t has generally been held that the First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the public generally,” and then went on to state its holding in the following unequivocal language:
The First and Fourteenth Amendments bar government from interfering in any way with a free press. The Constitution does not, however, require government to *378accord the press special access to information not shared by members of the public generally. It is one thing to say a journalist is free to seek out sources of information not available to members of the general public, that he is entitled to some constitutional protection of the confidentiality of such sources, cf. Branzbarg v. Hayes, supra, and that government cannot restrain the publication of news emanating from such sources. Cf. New York Times Co. v. United States [403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822] supra. It is quite another thing to suggest that the Constitution imposes upon government the affirmative duty to make available to journalists sources of information not available to members of the public generally. That proposition finds no support in the words of the Constitution or in any decision of this Court. Accordingly, since [the California prison regulation at issue] does not deny the press access to sources of information available to members of the general public, we hold that it does not abridge the protections that the First and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee. 417 U.S. at 834-35, 94 S.Ct. at 2810.
While expressing my dissent from the majority’s holding as set forth above, I record that I do think that the majority is correct in addressing the merits. To my mind the district court proceeded in civil contempt. While the case is thus moot in the sense that the reporters have lost the ability to purge themselves, their contentions raise an important point difficult to advance at the appellate level before mootness ensues and likely to arise again in continuing litigation over the coal strike and other matters. I therefore agree wholeheartedly that the case falls within a well recognized exception to the mootness doctrine.

 In my view the prerequisites to the establishment of a privilege against disclosure of communications set forth in VIII J. Wigmore, Evidence, § 2285 at 527 (1961) should apply to reporters. Under Federal Rules of Evidence 501, they should be afforded a common law privilege not to testify in civil litigation between private parties. I do not prolong this opinion by developing this point.