The question of whether courts or litigants can compel reporters to testify about sources seemingly reached its high point when Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, went to jail rather than testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. But the issue of the so-called reporter’s privilege remains unsettled, and two courts in the tri-state area are tackling it as we speak.
First up: Federal appeals court in Manhattan, where on Tuesday the court will hear James Treacy and his lawyers at Steptoe & Johnson appeal Treacy’s conviction for options backdating at Monster Worldwide Inc., according to Bloomberg. One of the central issues in Treacy’s appeal is whether Judge Jed Rakoff erred during the trial by placing strict limits on what lawyers on both sides could ask one of the Wall Street Journal reporters that exposed backdating in a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in 2006, according to Bloomberg. Treacy’s legal team claims Rakoff improperly limited their right to confront the reporter, Charles Forelle, about only very limited subject matter–three statements from Treacy that Forelle quoted in a story. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has submitted a brief backing that argument, claiming Rakoff’s limits violated the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, Bloomberg says.
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