Court Opinion

ID: 9846648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:44:45.94132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:41.121600
License: Public Domain

DONALDSON, Justice,
dissenting.
In every case involving an infringement of first amendment rights, whether the infringement is direct or indirect, one question is paramount. A court must decide whether there is a compelling interest justifying the infringement. Every first amendment case necessarily involves a balancing of competing interests. The interest in maintaining a robust first amendment must be balanced against whatever interest is asserted as justifying the impairment of first amendment freedoms. The balance is weighted in favor of the first amendment, however, in that the competing interest must be “compelling” or “paramount.” And normally the burden of establishing a compelling interest is on the state. These principles have been given consistent endorsement by the United States Supreme Court. DeGregory v. Attorney General of New Hampshire, 383 U.S. 825, 86 S.Ct. 1148, 16 L.Ed.2d 292 (1966); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed.2d 480 (1960); NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945); Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939). Because the majority diverges from this well-established approach, I dissent.
The majority opinion does not expressly address the issue of competing interests. In fact, there is some doubt that the majority believes first amendment freedoms are even implicated. Two interests are implicated, however, — the interest in allowing the press unfettered access to sources of information and the interest in allowing courts unimpaired access to testimony in civil litigation. These interests are in conflict and they have to be balanced. The case cannot be resolved simply by stating the general theory that new testimonial privileges are disfavored or by stating the *299importance courts have traditionally placed on compelling testimony in a lawsuit.
Nor can the case be resolved on the basis of Branzburg. The majority acknowledges that Branzburg was decided in the context of criminal prosecution.1 But, not surprisedly, given the approach of the majority opinion, it misses the import of this distinction. The immediate question before us is whether the admittedly important interest in compelling disclosure of relevant information in civil litigation should take precedence over the first amendment. In resolving this question, the authority that is most relevant is that which was decided in a civil context. Branzburg is a logical starting point, but it is only that.

Branzburg.

Branzburg was a 5-4 decision in which Justice Powell wrote a concurring opinion. The four dissenters maintained that newsmen should enjoy either a qualified or absolute privilege.2 The plurality opinion authored by Justice White rejected both claims, but it did recognize that newsgathering is entitled to first amendment protection.
Early in his decision, Justice White states “Nor is it suggested that news gathering does not qualify for First Amendment protection; without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated.” Branzburg v. Hayes, supra at 681, 92 S.Ct. at 2656. At the end of his opinion he states, “Finally as we have earlier indicated, news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections and grand jury investigations if instituted or conducted other than in good faith, would pose wholly different issues for resolution under the First Amendment.” 408 U.S. at 707, 92 S.Ct. at 2670.
To be sure, the protection that Justice White would allow the first amendment is narrowly circumscribed. The opinion as a whole seems to indicate that first amendment protection would only exist when the newsgatherer could show that the grand jury proceedings were being used as a means of harassment. In addition, the burden of proving lack of good faith appears to be on the newsgatherer which is contrary to the traditional approach in first amendment cases. But what is significant is that Justice White reached this result by balancing the burden disclosure would place on news-gathering against the importance of disclosure to the criminal justice system. Justice White found the latter compelling. 408 U.S. at 690, 92 S.Ct. 2646. The question in the present case is whether the interest in civil litigation is equally compelling.
It should also be noted that commentators and courts have not found Branzburg conclusive even in regard to the balance that should be struck between the first amendment and the needs of the criminal justice system. Bursey v. United States, 466 F.2d 1059 (9th Cir. 1972); State v. St. Peter, 132 Vt. 266, 315 A.2d 254 (1974); Brown v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 755, 204 S.E.2d 429 (1974). Note, Goodale, Branz*300burg v. Hayes and the Developing Qualified Privilege for Newsmen, 26 Hastings L.J. 709 (1975); Comment, Right of the Press to Gather Information after Branzburg and Pell, 124 U.Penn.L.Rev. 166 (1975); Supreme Court, 1971 Term, 86 Harv.L.Rev. 52, 137-48 (1972).
The seeds of disputation were sown in Justice Powell’s concurring opinion. Justice Powell, although he was the fifth justice to join the Branzburg majority, allows the first amendment greater weight than the plurality opinion does. First of all, Justice Powell does not impose a burden of proof on either the newsgatherer or the government. Instead he maintains that:
“the court — when called upon to protect a newsman from improper or prejudicial questioning — would be free to balance the competing interests on their merits in the particular case.” 408 U.S. at 710 n. *, 92 S.Ct. at 2671.
Secondly, Justice Powell expanded the scope of a newsgatherer’s first amendment protection. In addition to being protected from grand jury proceedings conducted in bad faith, Justice Powell thought that a newsgatherer might seek a motion to quash or a protective order whenever he was
“called upon to give information bearing only a remote and tenuous relationship to the subject of the investigation, or if he has some other reason to believe his testimony implicates confidential source relationships, without a legitimate need of law enforcement.” 408 U.S. at 710, 92 S.Ct. at 2671.
A majority of this Court contends that Powell’s concurrence gives a newsgatherer immunity from disclosure only if a grand jury investigation is conducted in bad faith. Whatever the meaning of Powell’s concurrence — and some commentators and courts contend that it establishes a qualified privilege — it cannot be read as the majority reads it. If Justice Powell intended that when an “investigation is not being conducted in good faith [the newsman] is not without remedy,” there would have been no reason for him to write a special concurrence. Justice White’s plurality opinion conceded that much to the first amendment. The majority’s interpretation bears no relation to the language of the opinion itself. Justice Powell explicitly stated that he did not think disclosure would be justified in a case when the requested information was “remote or tenuous to the subject of the investigation.” 408 U.S. at 710, 92 S.Ct. at 2671.
Admittedly the opinion is opaque, but since Powell was the deciding vote, it cannot be cavalierly dismissed — especially in view of the pains to which Powell went in Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U.S. 843, 94 S.Ct. 2811, 41 L.Ed.2d 514 (1974) to point out that his opinion in Branzburg was extremely limited.
“I emphasized the limited nature of the Branzburg holding in my concurring opinion. ‘The Court does not hold that newsmen, subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, are without constitutional rights with respect to the gathering of news or the safeguarding of their sources.’ In addition to these explicit statements, a fair reading of the majority’s analysis in Branzburg makes plain that the result hinged on an assessment of the competing societal interests involved in that case rather than on any determination that First Amendment rights are not implicated.” 417 U.S. at 859-860, 94 S.Ct. at 2819.
Justice Powell’s concurrence has had important consequences in the application of Branzburg. In Bursey v. United States, supra, for example, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit deviated from the conclusion reached by the Branzburg plurality. In response to the government’s contention that the first amendment is of no weight in grand jury proceedings, the court said:
“No governmental door can be closed against the amendment. No governmental activity is immune from its force. That the setting for the competition between rights secured by the first amendment and antagonistic governmental interests in a grand jury proceeding is simply one of the factors that must be taken *301into account in striking the appropriate constitutional balance.” 466 F.2d at 1082.
The court struck the balance in favor of the first amendment. The burden was on the government to establish that the
“government’s interest in the subject matter of the investigation is ‘immediate, substantial, and subordinating,’ that there is a ‘substantial connection’ between information it seeks to have the witness compelled to supply and the overriding governmental interest in the subject matter of the investigation, and that the means of obtaining information is not more drastic than necessary to forward the asserted governmental interest.” 466 F.2d at 1083.
In short, the court accorded newsgathering a qualified privilege.
The newspaper reporters in Bursey had refused to answer 56 of the grand jury’s questions. The court required them to answer only those questions that fell under the above standard. To that end the court distinguished between those questions regarding direct witnessing of possible criminal activity and those relating to newsgathering activities, even though the latter “might have something vaguely to do with conduct that might have criminal consequences.” The newspapermen were required only to answer questions about criminal activity that they witnessed.
Although the Bursey decision was technically decided and released the day following Branzburg, the opinion was undoubtedly written before it. Accordingly, the government moved for a rehearing arguing that the Bursey holding was inconsistent with Branzburg. Maintaining that the Branzburg holding was limited to its facts, the Ninth Circuit denied the government’s motion. The court noted that it adhered to the Branzburg formulation that the government or a grand jury did not have to make a preliminary showing before the grand jury could ask questions of witnesses. Nor did Bursey permit a grand jury witness to refuse to identify a person whom he had seen committing a crime. Nothing in Branzburg, moreover, “purported to disavow the balancing standards” traditionally used in first amendment cases. Competing interests were balanced in Bursey and the balance was struck in favor of the first amendment. The court concluded:
“We have reexamined our analysis of the factors involved in balancing the First Amendment rights against the governmental interests asserted to justify compelling answers to the questions here involved, and we have concluded that the balance we struck is not impaired by Branzburg.” 466 F.2d at 1091.
Special emphasis was placed on Justice Powell’s concurring opinion. The court followed Powell’s prescription that the “balance of these vital constitutional societal interests on a case-by-case basis accords with the tried and traditional way of adjudicating such questions.” Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, 408 U.S. at 710, 92 S.Ct. at 2671.
For the purposes of this case it is unnecessary to attempt a clarification of the Branzburg decision.3 The ultimate mean*302ing of the case will have to be determined by subsequent case law. It will suffice to say that Branzburg has not been given in a criminal context the weight that a majority of this Court gives it in a civil context.

The civil cases.

We come now to those cases that are most relevant to the outcome of this case— cases in which newsmen have been subpoenaed to testify in civil litigation. The first case decided in this area was Garland v. Torre, 269 F.2d 545 (2d Cir. 1958). The case arose when actress Judy Garland was described by Marie Torre in her Herald Tribune column as overweight. Torre attributed the statement to an unnamed C.B.S. official. Garland sued C.B.S. and sought the identity of the person who had made the statement. After having deposed several officials at C.B.S., Garland sought to depose Torre. Torre refused to identify the source and as a consequence she was held in criminal contempt. After balancing the interests involved, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the identity of the source was crucial to the plaintiff’s case and compelled disclosure.
What is significant for the purposes of this case, however, is that Justice Stewart was careful to point out the qualified nature of the required disclosure.
“It is to be noted that we are not dealing here with the use of the judicial process to force a wholesale disclosure of a newspaper’s confidential sources of news, nor with a case where the identity of the news source is of doubtful relevance or materiality [citations omitted]. The question asked of the appellant went to the heart of the plaintiff’s claim.” 259 F.2d at 549-50.
The majority reads Garland incorrectly when it maintains that Garland does not establish a qualified privilege. The test applied by the court in Garland is very similar to the one Justice Stewart articulated in his Branzburg dissent. The Garland test demands (1) relevancy, (2) exhaustion of alternate sources and (3) that the requested information be of critical importance. A plaintiff is entitled to disclosure only if he satisfies all three requirements. Otherwise, the identity of a reporter’s source is privileged.
The majority also incorrectly analogizes the facts of Garland to the facts of the present case. Garland is similar to Caldero in that a reporter refused to disclose the source of an allegedly defamatory statement. The similarity ends there. The identity of the source was arguably crucial in Garland because unless he was in fact a C.B.S. official, an action would not lie against C.B.S. Garland sued C.B.S. not the newspaper that published the statement. The only relevance that the identity of the source has in Caldero is that an inference of malice would arise if the source did not exist or if the source was manifestly irresponsible. I do not believe that such would normally qualify under the Garland test as the heart of the plaintiff’s case unless the plaintiff’s claim already has some foundation without the identity of the source being known.
It also is important to note that Garland was decided before the monumental Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).4 The balancing process in Garland was based upon a common law premise that the interest of the reporter in protecting a source is a private one, which must yield to the superior public interest in the administration of justice. That premise was refuted by New York Times. Torre’s claim for a constitutional justification for nondisclosure of her source was undermined by the fact that defamatory statements were considered outside the scope of first amendment protection. Had Torre been decided after New York Times, the result would have been different. Since New *303York Times, defamatory statements have been within the ambit of the first amendment. The thrust of New York Times and its progeny is that the elements to be weighed in the balancing process in constitutional libel actions should be the public interest in the free flow of news and the plaintiff's private reputational interest. The real import of Garland is not, as the majority seems to think, that the court ordered disclosure of a confidential source. Garland’s import is that although the statements involved were outside constitutional protection, the Second Circuit gave credence to the claimed privilege to protect a confidential source by insisting upon a strong showing of relevance prior to disclosure.
Civil cases decided since Garland have followed Garland in adopting a qualified privilege for newsgathering. Carey v. Hume, 160 U.S.App.D.C. 365, 492 F.2d 631 (1974); Cervantes v. Time, Inc., 464 F.2d 986 (8th Cir. 1972); Baker v. F & F Investment, 470 F.2d 778 (2d Cir. 1972).
Carey v. Hume, supra, involved an interlocutory appeal from a district court order directing a reporter to disclose his confidential sources. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit announced at the outset that the Garland approach should govern the outcome of the case. The court described the Garland approach as follows:
“That approach essentially is that the court will look to the facts on a case-by-case basis in the course of weighing the need for the testimony in question against the claims of the newsman that the public’s right to know is impaired.” 492 F.2d at 636.
The Carey court ordered disclosure, but it was careful to limit its holding to the specific facts of Carey. Jack Anderson had written a column stating that the United Mine Workers general counsel Edward L. Carey and U.M.W. President Tony Boyle had been seen improperly taking records from Boyle’s office. Carey sued for libel and deposed Britt Hume, Anderson’s colleague, who had supplied information for the article. Hume stated that a U.M.W. employee was the source for the statement, but declined to identify him.
The court found that the identity of Hume’s source was critical to Carey’s case. Hume testified that, according to his source, Carey and Boyle had confiscated the records over a protracted period of time. The court noted that it would be exceedingly difficult for Carey to introduce evidence beyond his own testimony that would prove that he did not “at any time of day or night over an indefinite period of several weeks” remove the documents from U.M.W. offices. 492 F.2d at 637. In addition, Anderson had based the allegedly defamatory article exclusively on the information supplied by the undisclosed source. There were no corroborative sources. Lastly and most importantly, the record before the court indicated that Carey’s claim was not frivolous.5 Whether Carey would prevail hinged upon the identity of the source.6
In Cervantes v. Time, Inc., supra, the issue of disclosure had to be resolved in a procedural context different from Carey, but the underlying issue was the same— should the court compel disclosure. Life Magazine had published an article representing that Alfonso Cervantes, the Mayor *304of St. Louis, maintained business and social ties with organized crime. Cervantes sued and moved for an order to compel disclosure of the source of the article. Time, Inc. made a motion for summary judgment with accompanying affidavits refuting Cervantes’ claim of malice. The district court granted Time’s motion without reaching the merits of Cervantes’ motion. Cervantes appealed. The Eighth Circuit found that in view of the plaintiff’s burden under the New York Times malice standard, there was no reasonable probability that Cervantes would succeed in his libel suit. It therefore upheld the district court’s grant of summary judgment even though the identity of Life’s sources had not been revealed to Cervantes. The court’s decision was based on the first amendment — “to routinely grant motions seeking compulsory disclosure of anonymous news sources without first inquiring into the substance of the libel allegation would utterly emasculate the fundamental principles that underlay the line of cases articulating the constitutional restrictions to be engrafted upon the enforcement of State libel laws.” 464 F.2d at 993.
The majority is correct in noting that in Cervantes the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment against the plaintiff. It is incorrect in dismissing the import of the case for this reason. Cervantes’ major argument was that the district court erred in granting summary judgment without first mandating the disclosure of Life’s confidential sources. The Eighth Circuit had to decide, in effect, whether the first amendment took primacy over the plaintiff’s right to know the identity of Life’s sources. Were it not for the intervention of the first amendment, Cervantes’ claim would have had merit. The Eighth Circuit’s conclusion— that disclosure should be ordered only when “there is a concrete demonstration that the identity of defense news sources will lead to persuasive evidence on the issue of malice” —is clearly relevant to the present case. 464 F.2d at 994. Expressed otherwise, Cervantes holds that the interest in compelling testimony takes precedence over the first amendment only when the information sought via disclosure is of critical importance to the plaintiff’s case. The identity of a reporter’s sources is privileged — if a plaintiff does not meet this standard, the court will not compel disclosure. This is merely a rephrasing of the Garland test that the requested information must go to the “heart of the plaintiff’s claim.”
The majority also errs when it dismisses the precedential value of Baker v. F & F Investment, supra.7 A number of distinctions are cited by the majority, none of which refute the relevance of Baker to the present case. Baker came before the court as an interlocutory appeal from a district judge’s decision refusing to compel a journalist to disclose confidential news sources. The district court reached its decision by balancing the public interest in a robust first amendment against the private interest in compelled testimony. The court concluded that the first amendment should prevail. On appeal the Court of Appeals saw the issue and its resolution as follows:
“Appellants urge us to extend to this civil case the limited principle of Branzburg v. Hayes which held only that newsmen could be required to disclose confidential sources to a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation. We decline that invitation and affirm the order.” 470 F.2d at 779-80.
The court followed the approach of Garland. In upholding the district court’s decision it noted that (1) the plaintiff had not exhausted alternate sources, (2) he had not demonstrated relevance, and (3) he had not shown that the information was of critical importance. The contrary result reached in Garland was distinguished on the facts of the case:
*305“The facts in the Garland case are wholly unlike those before us. There the record revealed that Miss Garland had taken active steps independently to determine the identity of the confidential news source. Three C.B.S. executives were deposed; they denied making the statement in question and denied knowing the identity of the network executive referred to in the Herald Tribune column. In view of these denials, the identity of Miss Torre’s source became essential to the libel action: in the words of this Court, it ‘went to the heart of plaintiff’s claim.’ [citation deleted] Appellants in this case have not demonstrated that the identity of [the reporter’s] confidential source is necessary much less critical to the maintenance of their civil rights action.” 470 F.2d at 784.
The basic theme of Garland, Carey, Cervantes, and Baker is that newsgathering should enjoy a qualified privilege.8 The respective courts reached this result by engaging the traditional first amendment balancing test. The courts set off the public interest in a robust first amendment against the private interest in compelled testimony. Equilibrium was reached by allowing a qualified privilege — courts would compel disclosure only when the plaintiff could show that the identity of the source was critical to his case. There were variations from court to court (Garland and Baker would require exhaustion of alternate sources), but each of the courts used this standard to delineate the limits of the privilege.
Whether a court should require disclosure in the individual case will depend upon the facts of the case. Disclosure can not be dictated in the abstract. The issue must be resolved on a case-by-case basis — in the words of Justice Powell, the “tried and traditional way of adjudicating such questions.” Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, 408 U.S. at 710, 92 S.Ct. at 2671.
When these principles are applied to the present case, we find that the identity of the confidential source is privileged. Caldero has not even come close to establishing the critical importance of Shelledy’s testimony.9 Shelledy’s undisclosed source merely expressed an opinion about the professional propriety of Caldero’s conduct that was echoed by the county prosecutor and the state attorney general, both of whom were identified in Shelledy’s article. Furthermore, the uncontradicted deposition of the attorney general, who was Caldero’s superior, confirmed the statements made in the news article. The statements themselves do not evince any inference of malice. Actual malice would have to be proved since the district court had already ruled that Caldero was a public official. Caldero’s claim, moreover, is not supported by any other evidence. As was stated earlier, the only relevance that the identity of the source has in Caldero is that an inference of malice would arise if the source was either nonexistent or irresponsible. Critical importance cannot be established on such a meager basis. The identity of a source could be of critical importance only if plaintiff’s allegations already had some basis in fact before disclosure. Then the identity of the reporter’s source could have the pivotal importance envisioned by Garland and its progeny.

. The Supreme Court specifically limited its holding in Branzburg: “The sole issue before is us the obligation of reporters to respond to grand jury subpoenas as other citizens do and to answer questions relevant to an investigation into the commission of crime.” Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 682, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 2657, 33 L.Ed.2d 626.
An exact reading of the issues raised in the Branzburg trilogy further limits the Court’s holding. The Court was presented with two issues, a reporter’s appearance before a grand jury and his testimony to crimes that he actually witnessed.

. In an opinion authored by Justice Stewart, three of the dissenters adopted a qualified privilege.
“[T]he government must (1) show that there is probable cause to believe that the newsman has information that is clearly relevant to a specific probable violation of law; (2) demonstrate that the information sought cannot be obtained by alternative means less destructive of First Amendment rights; and (3) demonstrate a compelling and overriding interest in the information.” 408 U.S. at 743, 92 S.Ct. at 2681. (Stewart, Brennan and Marshall, JJ., dissenting)
Justice Douglas in a separate dissent stated that the first amendment demanded that reporters enjoy an absolute privilege. 408 U.S. at 712, 92 S.Ct. at 2686, 33 L.Ed.2d at 657. (Douglas, J., dissenting)

. I will only state parenthetically that I believe that Powell’s concurrence does establish a qualified privilege. He explicitly states that under certain circumstances he would not force disclosure of sources. In other words, sources are privileged under certain circumstances.
Whether Powell adopts the standards articulated in Stewart’s dissent — relevance, exhaustion of alternate sources and compelling national interest in the testimony — is ambiguous. He accepts the relevance standard — he would quash a subpoena that requires a reporter to yield information “bearing only a remote and tenuous relationship to the subject of the investigation.” 408 U.S. at 710, n. , 92 S.Ct. at 2671. He adds in the same footnote, however, that Stewart’s proposal “would impose as heavy burdens of proof to be carried by the State.” This statement can be interpreted in two ways. He intended either that the remainder of the Stewart test should fail because it was too burdensome, or that the burden of proof should be placed on the reporter rather than the state.
What is important is that Powell’s opinion does allow a qualified privilege. The majority of this Court is therefore in error when it states that Branzburg does not privilege newsgathering. Five Justices, Powell and the four dissenters, do adopt a qualified privilege.

. Prior to Sullivan, there had been only occasional mention in defamation cases of the first amendment guarantees of free speech and free press. Sullivan introduced somewhat of a “bombshell” by holding that the first amendment itself required the privilege. Prosser, Law of Torts § 118 (1971).

. The court stated, “In Garland the court was unable to say that the plaintiffs claim was frivolous. Neither can we conclude on the basis of the record before us that appellee’s claim is without merit.” 492 F.2d at 637.

. The court relaxed the requirement of Garland that a plaintiff exhaust alternate sources to uncover the identity of the undisclosed source before seeking disclosure from the reporter. In Carey any one of a multitude of U.M.W. employees could have provided the information on which Anderson based his article. The court concluded that it would be unreasonable to expect the plaintiff to interview all the employees of U.M.W. to discover the source of Hume’s information. 492 F.2d at 638. However, to require Caldero to interview police experts in Idaho before he could compel disclosure would appear to be feasible, absent a showing that an attempt was made, and that it proved impossible. In this case no such showing was made. I believe that Garland requires only that a plaintiff exhaust alternate sources when it is feasible to do so.

. Baker was a civil rights class action brought in behalf of all Negroes in the City of Chicago who purchased homes from approximately 60 named defendants between 1952 and 1969. During discovery, plaintiffs deposed a journalist who had written an article on racially discriminatory real estate practices in the Chicago area. Plaintiffs wanted to know the identity of the real estate agent who provided information for the story.

. In the related area of subpoenas duces tecum, courts have also given newsgathering a qualified privilege. Democratic National Committee v. McCord, 356 F.Supp. 1394 (D.C.D.C. 1973); Spiva v. Francouer, 39 Fla.Supp. 49 (Dade County Jud. Cir. 1973). Both cases quashed the subpoenas.

. Caldero also has made no showing that he attempted to obtain the identity of Shelledy’s source by alternative means less destructive of first amendment freedoms.