Sandals at the Gate

Posted Friday November 17, 2006 at 09:51 AM

Freelance journalist, videographer and blogger Josh Wolf was denied a request for a rehearing yesterday by a federal court of appeal, and refused to accept any morefilings in the case. This means that Wolf, 24, could be kept in prisonuntil the expiration of the grand jury in July. Wolf, who was jailedfor refusing to turn over raw footage shot at a protest in SanFrancisco in July 2005 and testify about its contents, has alreadyserved 88 days in jail. Wolf was subpoenaed by federal prosecutorsinvestigating charges of vandalism at the event.

Wolf was sentenced and imprisoned in August, was released on bail inSeptember, and then was sent back to jail when his bail was revoked bya panel of the Ninth Circuit Court. A hearing by the full court wasrequested by his lawyer, which is the request denied yesterday. Themotion to reinstate bail was "denied as moot." Thank goodness the courts are protecting society from this very, very dangerous 24 year old kid.

Wolf's lawyer has offered the court the full tape in exchange forrelease from testimony, but the US Attorney's Office for the NorthernDistrict of California has said no dice. And it's prison for you, JoshWolf, until you reconsider your silly little shield law. Civillitigation attorney and former public defender Stephen Kaus has been following the case on HuffPo, and noted"[w]hatever powers the government should have in the face of alegitimate terror threat, that is not what is happening here." Kaus also notesthat Wolf 's case has come before a Federal court rather than a statecourt, before which he would be protected by California's shield law.As we learned in the case of Judith Miller (a JoshWolf advocate), there is no federal shield law for journalists. Kausexplains why Wolf's case is particularly outrageous:

InWolf's case, the court required him to make the difficult showing thatthe investigation was undertaken in bad faith and then held that he hadnot done so. This is a far cry from balancing the importance of theevidence against the harm being done to the role of the press.

The fact is that the effectiveness of the press is substantiallydiminished if every reporter is turned into a "surveillance camera" asWolf has claimed. Perhaps with exceptions for genuinely "terrible"situations, the press cannot function if each crime related story couldturn into days of court testimony. The law in California that allinvolved on the government side have chosen to flout is designed toprotect this press function.

The reverse onus of requiring Wolf to prove that the request forinformation is in bad faith is a ridiculous inversion of therequirements that by law are put in place to protect a person'sliberty. This case is particularly egregious considering thatinvestigators are looking into the vandalism of a police car that Wolfclaims isn't even on the tape. In light of that fact, it seemsparticularly churlish for the DA's office to refuse to accept Wolf'soffer of tape and no testimony, since there seems to be the possibilitythat a simple viewing might make the whole request moot. Either way,the fact that jailtime is being used here as a punitive tactic ofcoercion rather than a legitimate punishment for actual lawbreaking isatrocious, particularly in light of the court's decision to shut thedoor on Wolf for the rest of the grand jury term while he languishes injail.

technorati tags:joshwolf, civilliberties, freepress