After the First Amendment Fails: The Newsmen's Privilege Hearings of the 1970s

The recent jailing and threatened jailing of journalists seeking to protect confidential sources has prompted Congress to reopen debate on legislation providing journalists with a statutory right of confidentiality. This article explores debates over eighty-six newsmen's privilege bills introduced in the House of Representatives between 1972 and 1975, after the Supreme Court of the United States decided Branzburg v. Hayes. The article identifies the primary policy differences, motives and perspectives of key advocates, and reasons for the failure of any bill to become law. It examines arguments for and against a privilege and the four major areas of policy disputes: the range of protections from absolutist to qualified protections, the problem of defining “journalist,” protection of only confidential information or all newsgathering material, and whether a federal privilege statute should apply to state proceedings. In doing so, the article provides historical context to contemporary legislative debates.     

The Journalist's Privilege for Nonconfidential Information in States Without Shield Laws

Figures compiled by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press show that most subpoenas to the news media seek nonconfidential information, opening the door for subpoenas and other legal actions that could seriously infringe First Amendment rights to a free flow of information and an independent press. While courts in most of the nineteen states without shield laws protect confidential sources, however, courts in only two states extend the privilege to nonconfidential information in both civil and criminal proceedings. Protection for nonconfidential information may require the passage of a shield law in Texas, where the courts are especially hostile to privileges for reporters. However, in other states a strong argument based on protecting press autonomy may help the press prevail.     

Challenging Civil Contempt: The Limits of Judicial Power in Cases Involving Journalists

Despite their assertion of a First Amendment or common law reporter's privilege in federal courts, journalists continue to face jail sentences and exorbitant fines for refusing to divulge their confidential sources when subpoenaed. Efforts to pass even a limited federal shield law have failed so far. This article offers another avenue to protect journalists—examining the roots of contempt law and policy to highlight limits on the contempt power of judges. It argues that because journalists are part of a group resting on steadfast moral and professional convictions, they may validly argue that confinement and excessive fines are improper sanctions. The article also suggests refinements in shield law proposals and other legislation to clarify the extent of judicial contempt power.     

No Confidence: Confidentiality,Ethics and the Law of Academic Privilege

The law recognizes several evidentiary privileges, including a qualified privilege recognized by statute or court precedent in forty-eight states and several federal circuits that allows journalists to protect confidential sources. Meanwhile, ethical practices for social science surveys require pledging confidentiality to respondents, a practice that can conflict with subpoenas and court orders requiring revelation of such information. Only a handful of court decisions have formally recognized a privilege for scholars similar to a reporters’ privilege, and an examination of the court decisions that have either ruled on or discussed the issue reveals that while many courts recognize the interests of scholars in confidentiality, most courts decline to recognize a legal privilege for researchers. Courts do, however, often limit disclosure to accommodate these concerns. The specific circumstances and rationales of these decisions are discussed and analyzed.     

The Intent Behind the Cryptic Concurrence That Provided a Reporter's Privilege

Justice Lewis Powell wrote a concurrence in Branzburg v. Hayes that, despite a majority opinion to the contrary, eventually provided room for journalists to claim a privilege against testifying in grand jury proceedings. For decades, scholars and judges have questioned what Justice Powell meant by his concurrence and whether he, in fact, supported a reporter's right to refuse to reveal confidential information. Justice Powell's personal papers and case files, as well as those of his fellow justices, observations of one of his former law clerks, and oral arguments shed light on the reasoning behind Justice Powell's enigmatic concurrence. This article concludes that Justice Powell supported a qualified reporter's privilege, applied on a case-by-case basis.     

From the Field to the Courthouse: Should Social Science Research Be Privileged?

Social scientists need clarification about the extent to which the confidential aspects of their research are protected from compulsory disclosure in legal proceedings, and the extent to which they ought to be. Investigating the nature of social science research with an emphasis on researcher-participant relationships in ethnographic practice, I conclude that a qualified privilege would confer three major benefits on social science researchers: confidence that the government will not unnecessarily interfere with research, facilitation of improved researcher-participant relationships, and increased accuracy, thoroughness, and reliability of research data. I also discuss the development of privilege and confidentiality issues in practical research contexts through an examination of two criminal cases in which social science researchers refused to divulge the confidential information obtained in the course of research. Finally, I discuss the possible formulations of a scholarly research privilege. This is especially important because courts have cast social scientists as members of the larger community of academic or scholarly researchers with respect to these issues. Potential sources of protection include state journalist protection laws, federal common law, and federal statutory law. Evaluation of these sources and the case law to which they correspond suggests that developing common law privileges in state and federal jurisprudence is the most promising means of affording the confidential aspects of social science research legal protection. As researchers continue to press privilege     

Protecting Journalists’ Sources Without a Shield: Four Proposals

Journalists’ right to protect the identities of their confidential sources relies on an inconsistent set of court decisions based on constitutional and common law interpretations and state statutes. Efforts to bring some consistency to federal law through the passage of a shield law have stalled while journalists face new threats because of the vulnerability of their communications to discovery and monitoring by third parties. Also, the entry of non-professional communicators into the news ecosystem is causing courts to reevaluate and redefine long-standing protections. This article proposes four ways that sources could be better protected from unmasking without the passage of a shield law: improving whistleblower laws to better protect people who report illegal or unethical actions to the media; vastly reducing the number of government secrets to make “leaking” less attractive or necessary; changing legal strategy to focus on protecting the anonymity of sources instead of the rights of journalists to keep secrets; and more widespread and intelligent use of encrypted applications and software could all improve the security of journalistic sources. Because of the complexity of amending multiple whistleblower protection laws and changing the government’s document classification system, the article argues that the best solutions may be to persuade news organizations to change legal tactics and to use better encryption technology.     

The Compatibility Dialectic: Mediating the Legitimate Coexistence of Islamic Law and State Law

Islamic Law is not now and cannot be the state law of any state, whether Muslims are the majority or minority of the population. This view does not dispute the religious authority of Islamic Law for Muslims, which exists only outside the framework of the state. Still, some principles of Islamic Law should be relevant to the public discourse, provided the argument is made in terms of what the author calls 'civic reason' and not simply by assertions of religious conviction. While the two are different types of normative systems, each based on its own sources of authority and legitimacy, there are possibilities of compatibility and mutual influence between Islamic Law and state law as complementary normative systems, without requiring either to conform to the nature and role of the other. This lecture examines the requirements, scope and dynamics of this dialectic relationship, whether Muslims are majority or minority.     

Waiver of the psychotherapist-patient privilege: implications for child custody litigation

The psychotherapist-patient privilege, rooted in both common and statutory law, is predicated upon the public policy goal of protecting the reasonable expectation of privacy of individuals seeking psychotherapy. The privilege is not absolute, however. State and federal courts are far from uniform in determining how and when the privilege should be waived, in whole or in part, through implication, inadvertence or the affirmative action of the parties. In the family law context, the law that has evolved around the exercise of this privilege is even more complex as the needs of children add another wrinkle to the goal of balancing the imperative of confidentiality with the need for useful information that may be provided.     

Problems of definition: What is organized crime?

What do most people, or at least most Americans, think of when they hear, see, or read the term “organized crime”? What do they know about it? And from whence do they get their information? What about law enforcement practitioners, prosecutors, judges, and politicians? And, what about academics and journalists, the folks who study and write about organized crime? Agreeing upon a commonly accepted definition of just what is organized crime has been a continuing problem for both research and policy. The discussion that follows addresses various dimensions of this problem, looks at the implications, and makes certain recommendations.     

Scientia potentia est: Making threats of copyright infringement

There has been much debate in the UK as to whether copyright law should have an unjustified threats provision similar to that found in UK patent, trade mark, and registered design law. Unjustified threats provisions for copyright law exist in other commonwealth jurisdictions, such as Australia and India. We argue that all of the existing unjustified threats provisions in the UK are too narrow in their scope. Threats more generally have played a significant role in the development of copyright law, and a provision aimed at ‘unjustified’ threats may paradoxically restrict discourse about the scope of copyrights. We therefore suggest that the best way to proceed is not just to introduce an unjustified threats provision but instead to make clearer what is, and is not, protected by copyright.     

特免权规则：美国的制度与实践——兼论特免权规则的普遍性与差异性及中国语境下特免权规则的确立

英美证据法上设立特免权规则的目的在于保障特定的国家政策和具有普遍性的价值观念。特免权规则不仅存在于英关法系国家，而且也存在于大陆法系国家。但我国法律并没有明确地确立任何特免权规则，因此，我们应当审慎地对待特免权规则的移植问题。对于那些体现全人类共同价值的特免权规则，应当毫不犹豫地加以移植；对于尚无生活基础的特免权规则，暂时可不予考虑；对于相应制度具有类似功效且在实践中尚无显著问题的领域，也可以维持现状。     

特免权规则:美国的制度与实践——兼论特免权规则的普遍性与差异性及中国语境下特免权规则的确立

英美证据法上设立特免权规则的目的在于保障特定的国家政策和具有普遍性的价值观念。特免权规则不仅存在于英美法系国家,而且也存在于大陆法系国家。但我国法律并没有明确地确立任何特免权规则,因此,我们应当审慎地对待特免权规则的移植问题。对于那些体现全人类共同价值的特免权规则,应当毫不犹豫地加以移植;对于尚无生活基础的特免权规则,暂时可不予考虑;对于相应制度具有类似功效且在实践中尚无显著问题的领域,也可以维持现状。     

An organization's waiver of the attorney-client privilege and/ or the attorney work product protection to obtain leniency in federal court sentencing: what is the brouhaha all about?

The guidelines controlling the sentencing of organizations provide for the reduction in an entity's culpability score for self-reporting, cooperation, and acceptance of responsibility. What an organization must do in order to receive the reduction in culpability score changed dramatically in 2004 when additional language was added to Application Note 12 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual Section 8C2.5(g) stating that "waiver of the attorney-client privilege and of work product protections is not a prerequisite to a reduction. ... However, in some circumstances waiver of the attorney-client privilege and of work product protections may be required in order to satisfy the requirements of cooperation." Following months of hearings and public comment, the United States Sentencing Commission reversed its position on whether a sentencing court should consider an organization's waiver of the attorney-client privilege and/or of the attorney work product protection in evaluating the organization's "cooperation" as a sentencing factor by proposing to retract the language added by the 2004 amendments. Although that proposal has become effective, it is yet to be determined what the response of the three branches of government will be on the issue of privilege waivers in the context of federal criminal law. This Article gives readers an overview of the development of the use of privilege waivers by organizations seeking credit for cooperation at the time of sentencing for federal crimes, the reaction of both corporations and their lawyers to the waiver issue, and the events leading up to the Commission's change of position.     

Clashing conceptions of press duties: Public journalists and the courts

This article bridges the growing, but controversial, public journalism movement with First Amendment jurisprudence and libel law. It examines whether the movement finds support in laws that affect the press and, in particular, in court‐created defenses and privileges that protect journalists in modern defamation law. Do defenses that safeguard journalists in their traditional routines as fact gatherers and reporters also protect them in the kinds of roles and duties envisioned by public journalism advocates? Furthermore, has the United States Supreme Court, in non‐defamation cases involving the First Amendment, expressed concern for protecting what might be called the “public journalism functions” of the press? Does the Court create a different image for the press than the one envisioned by public journalism advocates? This article addresses these questions. It ultimately concludes that public journalists and courts have two very different conceptions about the role that journalists play in a democracy.     

Unanticipated consequences of unanticipated outcomes disclosures

This article discusses the complex legal and operational issues related to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' (JCAHO) unanticipated outcomes disclosure standard. The author examines case law on the discoverability of hospital quality improvement efforts and information submitted to the JCAHO, and considers whether submitting this information to JCAHO amounts to a waiver of privilege. The author concludes disclosure of an unanticipated outcome should not give rise to a waiver if the hospital and physician are careful in making the disclosure.     

After Government? On Representing Law Without the State

For the greater part of the 20th century, representations of law as state law were dominant in the legal scholarship of the West. But over the last thirty years sustained attempts have been made, notably under the self-conscious banner of legal pluralism, to loosen the conceptual bonds between law and government. Early on, acephalous societies in formerly colonial territories and local groupings within the metropolis were represented as legal orders. Latterly, as attention shifted to orderings at regional and global level beyond the nation state, attempts have been made to delineate a general jurisprudence. It is argued here that these conceptual revisions have for the most part been problematic, made in the face of strong evidence linking the cultural assemblage we have come to call law with projects of government. The lecture concludes with a plea that we should be very cautious in representing what are essentially negotiated orders, whether at local or global level, as legal orders; these remain significantly different from those at the level of the state. Today, under an onslaught of jural discourse and institutional design, the distinctive rationalities and values of negotiated order, while arguably deserving to be celebrated, are effectively effaced.     

刑法平等原则辨析

刑法已经对平等作了明确的规定,但刑法学界对于刑法平等是单纯的司法平等还是立法平等与司法平等的统一、刑法平等是纯粹打击犯罪上的平等还是打击犯罪与保护权益平等的结合、刑法平等是否仅为自然人间的平等、刑法平等要排除哪些因素的干扰、刑法平等与区别对待关系如何处理,争议颇大。对这些争议予以澄清是正确把握刑法平等原则内涵和外延的需要。     

Chilling Journalism: Can Newsgathering be Harassment or Stalking?

Newsgathering often requires journalists to ask uncomfortable questions or make multiple attempts to talk to unwilling sources. Some journalists have been accused of harassment, even when the plain language of state laws would not classify their actions as criminal conduct. In the rare instances that journalists actually were charged with harassment or subject to protective orders for stalking, district attorneys or judges typically did not allow them to be punished. This study, however, found nine statutes that might be applied to punish newsgathering activities that are neither hounding nor harassing. It also identifies language from statutes that clearly could not be applied to punish newsgathering communications by journalists. The article recommends that prosecutors and judges continue to prevent the application of criminal harassment and stalking laws to newsgathering activities.     

论法治国家

法与国家关系一元论既可能有利法治 ,也可能导致法治根本就无法建立。法与国家二元论下的国家优先论 ,可能使法成为国家的附庸而否定法本身。它在使法失去了自身的独立性和对国家的约束力的同时 ,也使法治失去了基本的立足点。在法与国家的产生上 ,二者在互动渐变中发展形成 ,没有先后之分 ;在法与国家的并存中 ,二者有着地位的差异。基于法与国家本身的特性 ,基于保障人民权利的价值期求 ,基于实现法治国家的理想目标 ,法律应当优先于国家。就法治国家来说 ,我们要建设的是实质意义上的法治国家 ,而非形式意义上的法治国家。我们不能将法治国家与法治相等同 ,更不能将二者对立起来 ,相反 ,我们应当把法治的内容纳入法治国家的含义之中。法治国家与人治国家、专制国家、警察国家等非法治国家相对立 ,与宪政国家相联系。西方法治发展已经经历了漫长的历史过程 ,中国关于法治国家口号的提出也有百年的历史 ,现在重提并郑重确认它为我国社会发展的目标 ,必然具有重大的意义。我国法治将经由法治国家进而向法治社会的纵深发展。