(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has voiced relief that Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, of the daily “San Francisco Chronicle”, threatened with imprisonment by a federal court for refusing to reveal their source of information in a sports drugs scandal, are unlikely to go to jail after all. But the worldwide press freedom organisation said […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has voiced relief that Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, of the daily “San Francisco Chronicle”, threatened with imprisonment by a federal court for refusing to reveal their source of information in a sports drugs scandal, are unlikely to go to jail after all.
But the worldwide press freedom organisation said this conclusion did not resolve the root of the problem, since the source had effectively turned himself in and pleaded guilty.
“If the lawyer Troy Ellerman had not admitted to giving information to Williams and Fainaru-Wada, the prison sentence imposed in the lower court for “contempt of court” would likely have been upheld on appeal on 7 March 2007,” the organisation said. “This is a happy outcome for the journalists but is in no way a victory for press freedom and protection of sources.”
Williams and Fainaru-Wada reported in the “San Francisco Chronicle” in 2004 on a federal grand jury investigation into drug-taking in the sports world, implicating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO). The journalists had obtained a copy of testimony by three baseball players and one athlete accused of taking steroids allegedly provided by BALCO.
Ordered to reveal the source of the investigation leak, the two journalists cited the right to protect their sources, which is recognised in 33 states, but not at the federal level. On 15 August, federal judge Jeffrey White sentenced them both to 18 months in prison for “contempt of court”, the maximum penalty. Their lawyers immediately appealed.
Their appeal was frequently adjourned but finally set for 7 March 2007. In the meantime, on 14 February, Troy Ellerman, one of the a lawyers for the accused sports figures, admitted that he had given the journalists his clients’ statements and said he would plead guilty to “contempt of court”, “obstructing justice” and “breaking an oath”, offences considered federal crimes. Ellerman faces two years in prison and a US$250,000 fine, if the judge accepts the deal.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, on 19 January had pleaded the case of the two journalists in a letter to the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, repeating her support for a federal law guaranteeing journalists the right to protect their sources.
Reporters Without Borders said Nancy Pelosi’s action in taking up the case of the two journalists with the department of justice and voicing support for a federal “shield law” allowing protection of sources meant that the case had in one respect marked a major step forward, in the direction sought by the organisation.
