[Leica] Re: (Leica) Feb Shutterbug and evidentiary privilege (long)

[SthRosner@aol.com]

A timely piece about press sources in today's news: 

<<<<January 5, 2002
Writer Who Was Jailed in Notes Dispute Is Freed
By ROSS E. MILLOY

HOUSTON, Jan. 4 — Vanessa Leggett, an aspiring author jailed for more than 
five months for refusing to hand over her research to a grand jury, was 
released today from a federal detention center when the grand jury's term 
expired.

"Downtown Houston never looked so good," Mrs. Leggett said, opting to walk 
six blocks in the winter sunshine with her husband, Doak, to her lawyer's 
office, rather than ride.

Just how long she will remain free remains a question. Prosecutors have 
indicated they may convene a new grand jury within the next few weeks to 
compel Mrs. Leggett's testimony.

"If she should be called again as a witness, she will go through the same 
process again," said Terry Clark, an assistant United States attorney........

In a case that could affect the relationship between the government and the 
press, Mrs. Leggett was jailed for contempt of court after refusing the grand 
jury's request for her notes and records about a sensational 1997 murder in 
Houston. Because she was writing a book about the murder, Mrs. Leggett and 
her lawyers argue, the materials were protected from a forced disclosure. The 
government maintains that Mrs. Leggett, who does not have a publisher for her 
murder book and has never published a news article, is not a member of the 
media.

"This is an absolutely critical case for what it says about journalists' 
testifying before grand juries," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of 
the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, based in Arlington, Va. 
"Every journalist who might want to shield confidential sources is at risk in 
what happens here," Ms. Dalglish said.

Mrs. Leggett's journey toward jail began on April 16, 1997, when Doris 
Angleton — wife of a millionaire former bookmaker, Robert Angleton — was 
found shot to death in their home here. The police arrested Mr. Angleton's 
brother Roger, seizing $64,000 wrapped in paper bearing Robert Angleton's 
fingerprints. Mrs. Leggett, who was then an adjunct university lecturer in 
English and criminal justice at the University of Houston-Downtown, had been 
seeking a subject for a true- crime book, and a chance conversation with 
Roger Angleton led to hundreds of interviews with him and other people close 
to the case. "This case picked me, I didn't pick it," she said last year.

Both brothers were charged with capital murder in state court, with 
prosecutors asserting that Robert had hired Roger to kill his estranged wife 
to avoid a costly divorce settlement. Roger Angleton committed suicide while 
awaiting trial in 1998, leaving a note confessing to the crime. Robert 
Angleton was acquitted, but a federal investigation has begun into 
accusations of tax evasion and money-laundering.

With Roger Angleton no longer able to testify, federal agents began 
questioning Mrs. Leggett about the case, leading to her incarceration. The 
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected her appeal, and 
her lawyers asked the Supreme Court to consider her case; that request stands 
because of the possibility that she could be jailed again.>>>>


Think on't.      Seth        LaK 9 
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html