European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 2, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 12 the stars and stripes monday october 2, 1978 plop Tom Wicker times reporter s right to fair trial ignored 1978 los Angeles times Syndicate William Buckley what seems most consistently to have been overlooked As the contempt Case against the new York times and re Porter . Farber progresses is Farber s right to a fair trial. But he has already been jailed and May be jailed again for invoking r. State statute that he had every reason to consider valid while resisting a subpoena that the courts May yet find too Broad. Most comment on the Case has entered on the first amendment rights of the press and on the sixth amendment rights to a fair trial of or. Mario Jas Calevich he is on trial in new Jersey on charges of having murdered three patients in 1965 and 1966. Farber s reporting was instrumental in the reopening of the Case and Jas Calevich s attorney Raymond a. Brown has subpoenaed All the reporter s and the times notes pertaining to the Case. Both have refused citing the first amendment and the new Jersey shield Law that supposedly protects reporters from having to reveal the identity of a confidential source. As a result the times has been heavily fined and Farber jailed for contempt of court the new Jersey supreme court has upheld their contempt convictions. In doing so the new Jersey court Virtu ally ignored the Central Issue of the Case whether the subpoena for the times and Farber s notes is Overly Broad. The new Jersey justices relied on the 1972 Branz Berg Case in which the United states supreme court ruled that reporters have no first amendment right to refuse to give in formation to grand juries they concluded that therefore the obligation to appear at a criminal trial on behalf of a defendant t. Is at least As humiliation As a crime deterrent in parts of san Francisco one does t walk at night which reminds one that it is part of the same country with new York City where you Are also unsafe walking the streets at night in Given areas. Or. Leonard Greentree. A distinguished 70-year-old doctor from Columbus Ohio is greatly indignant Over this his proposition being that everyone should be free to go anywhere at any time. To be sure his con Cern in t entirely abstract. His Only Niece enjoying such Liberty was strangled to death by a teen Ager. That one would think would be bad enough the tragic end of a simple Story. But the horror went on. The boy in ques Tion who was roaming the streets had been under indictment for a similar death. His father a Man of Means retained a resourceful lawyer and so the boy was put away for Only a few months and is out again now possible looking for Nubi Enecks to strangle. Forty five percent of All violent crimes in the United states is being done by Chil Dren 18 years old or less. A year ago time Magazine published an unforgettable account of the awesome sadism of the Young mugger killer rapist. Or. Greentree took the most recent Fig ures for new York City for fiscal 1974. Dur ing that 12 months 5,666 juveniles were arrested for violent crime. Probably to draw on one s general knowledge of ratios Only one out of every 10 was caught. Of those 5,666 one out of 23 was sent to a correctional or penal institution. It would be Safe to assume that one out of one Hundred offenders was put away. Gov. Hugh Carey who is running for re election and like the governor of califor Nia was the decisive voice in defeating the return of capital punishment thus giving the impression that he is generally soft on crime has tried to Correct that impression by signing a Bill that would stiffen sentences against murderers and rapists even if they Are not old enough to vote. Which is All very Well says or. Greentree except that merely removing the Young criminal from the Street is not sufficient. It is Good in the obvious sense of visibly removing someone who when released May have tamed his More brutal impulses. But it is bad in the sense that in prison he might be toughened by the uniformity of the anti social associates but bad also because it does not Cope with the budding Young Crim Inal the Vandal the thief the bully whose instincts Are under present arrange ments unchecked and Here or. Greentree has an idea. He has written to senator Moynihan in deference to that senator s experience in the social sciences suggesting an in depth risk Benefit analysis of painless pub Lic humiliation to deter violence and Juve Nile crime. Or. Greentree reminds us that not very Long ago there was no such thing As a jail a Penitentiary. Criminals were hanged or they were branded or they were flogged or they were deported or they were pilloried. This last has engaged the doctor s attention. It is his thesis that the Young offender is almost everywhere susceptible to Humilia Tion. And that the ancient Stock is the appropriate instrument for it. Public ride Cule whereby the culprit is humiliated in the presence of his Peers has Long been engendered in the history of Man. Since the most widely used instrument of Humilia Tion was the Stock especially during the 18th Century it should be tried again. The transgressor sat on a Stool with his Ankles thrust through holes in a wooden Structure. This was Seldom for More than a few hours. Occasionally the arms and head were also put through holes in the Struc Ture but More often not. This Point must be strongly made stocks do not cause physical pain. On the basis of this reasoning the Youthful bully after witnessing such a humiliation May pause and think twice be fore he maliciously Breaks school windows for kicks or disrupts classes in general the 15-year-old, after witnessing such humiliation May pause and think twice be fore he mugs and snatches the purse of the 75-year-old woman in the Why not give it a try or. Greentree merely wants to study presumable with the resurrection of the Stock in one or two places where results might be measured. So far he has had no response. If the idea goes it might be Well to extend the use of the stocks for congressmen who vote an unbalanced budget. There Are infinite possibilities. C Washington Star oue.,. But under the Kranzberg ruling prosecutors seeking information from reporters have been required to show that what they Are asking for is relevant to the Case that the reporter probably has the information and that it can be obtained from no one else. In the Jas Calevich Case the subpoena is unlimited it demands All the notes and information in the Possession of Farber and the times with not the least showing of what the defense expects to find or of How such findings might be helpful to Jas Calevich. Often cited As a parallel is the Case of Richard Nixon s tapes which he at first tried to withhold from the courts under the doctrine of executive he was ordered by the supreme court to turn them Over to the special watergate prosecutor and the Farber Case has caused some commentators to ask is a reporter can be immune to what applies to a president. But special prosecutor Leon Jaworski specified which tapes he wanted and what he expected to find in them and How such findings would be relevant to his investigation. Jas Calevich s attorney has Given no such specifications offering Only a totally unsubstantiated theory that Farber conspired with the prosecutor to bring about Jas Calevich s prosecution. So far the new Jersey courts have failed to require any specificity in what is demanded of Farber and the times. If they had the conflict be tween the courts the times and Farber might have been significantly reduced. The . Supreme court might conceivably Send the subpoena Back to new Jer sey for a narrowing of its scope to reason Able limits. Already in issuing a stay earlier in the Case Justice Thurgood mar shall has commented that conc Lesory assertions by defense counsel Brown Are insufficient to justify a subpoena of the breath of the one involved but a supreme court ruling on the Case will take a Long time pending its decision Mike Farber could spend a lot of time in jail. The new Jersey court found unassailable the Contention of Jas Calevich s coun Sel that whenever the Constitution and a statute in this Case the state shield Law Are in conflict the statute must give Way. But the supreme court in the Branz Berg Case interpreted the first Amend ment it did not necessarily prevent the states from passing valid legislation to give reporters the shield it said the amendment did not provide. Farber claimed the Protection of the new Jersey Law in Good Faith at a time when it appeared to be valid and when he had no Rea son to believe that it was in violation of the Constitution which it May not necessarily be. He went to jail for so acting and without a hearing on the merits of his Case which seems to be a greater violation of his sixth amendment rights than anything yet encountered by Jas Calevich. As for so called press rights there can be Little doubt that the position of the new Jersey court if upheld Means that any re Porter who writes about a criminal Case is liable to subpoena by the defense at that a grab bag subpoena As indiscriminately written As the one by Raymond Brown. That will make most investigative report ing in criminal matters impossible be cause confidential sources knowing their identities cannot be protected will not pro vide reporters with information. Maybe in the current hate the press atmosphere most americans Don t care about that. But How will they feel about it if the logic of the new Jersey court is applied to doctors lawyers clergymen husbands and wives Law enforcement officers can a subpoena from a defense attorney Force any one of these to break his or her pledges of confidentiality. Is that what the sixth amendment right to a fair trial requires surely the authors of the Bill of rights would be amazed to hear it. C new York times
