Legal Research

Judge Orders Reporter To Pay Fines in Anthrax Source Dispute

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime and Justice News, March 10, 2008.

"Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy is expected to appeal a federal judge's order that she pay fines of up to $5,000 per day for failing to identify sources who named former Army scientist Steven Hatfill as a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton requires Locy - not her former employer or others - to pay the fines as long as she refuses to identify her sources. 'This court appreciates the importance of the media's ability to freely report the news in a democratic society like the United States,' Walton said. 'But just as the First Amendment is a fundamental component of the American system, so too is the rule of law.' " 

"Hatfill, publicly identified in 2002 by Attorney General John Ashcroft as a 'person of interest' in the attacks that killed five people, has never been charged. USA Today editor Ken Paulson said of Walton's ruling, 'Surely the First Amendment guarantee of a free press means that reporters shouldn't have to choose between principle and poverty.' Locy, now teaching journalism at West Virginia University, has said she spoke to a number of officials on an anonymous basis regarding the anthrax inquiry, but she cannot remember which sources provided information linking Hatfill to the government's inquiry."

USA Today

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).