Column: Heavy hand of Minnesota judge comes down on reporter

The Free Press [of Mankato, Minn.,] … rejected [a prosecutor’s request for a reporter’s notebooks], citing the Minnesota Shield Law and its intent to protect
journalists from just such overreaching prosecutors.

That
argument was strongly rebuffed by [District Court] Judge [Norbert P.] Smith. He said the shield law
didn’t apply in this case because Minnesota lawmakers had amended it
eight years ago to broaden the types of cases in which the courts could
require journalists to disclose information and sources.

Previously, the judge said, the law “required that the information be
clearly relevant to a specific violation of the law. If that were still
the language of the statute, then the argument of the Free Press would
have greater weight.”

But the change, he said, required
journalists to testify against their will whenever there was probable
cause to believe the unpublished information or anonymous sources were
clearly relevant to a criminal investigation.

In other words,
Judge Smith’s ruled that prosecutors in Minnesota are allowed to go on
a fishing expedition with the press, a practice shield laws are
specifically suppose to prevent.

In this instance, the judge
let the unsupported argument of the prosecutors and his obvious dislike
for aggressive news reporting skew his logic. His written opinion
suggested the reporter and his newspaper undermined the efforts of
police negotiators by inadvertently connecting with the gunman, and may
even have contributed to his suicide.

Judge Smith offered no
evidence to support those outrageous accusations, except for a state
investigator’s statement… .

“Freedom of the press is not quite as sacrosanct
or absolute as The Free Press said the judge.
would like it to be,””The right claimed by The Free Press to seek the ‘truth’ must never be
allowed to take precedent over the compelling and overriding interest
of law enforcement authority to maintain human life.”

This
conclusion by a state judge in Minnesota is unjustified, among other
reasons because it infers the police are always right and that the
press has a limited role in trying to independently inform the public
about criminal activity without fear of being hauled into court.

Judge Smith’s opinion shows little respect for journalists as the
people’s surrogate in our form of democracy. Thus the Mankato Free
Press and its corporate parent, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.,
intend to fight his finding to the hilt.