Reporter subpoenaed

By David Singleton 
The Scranton Times/The Tribune

Article published March 30, 2004

Lackawanna County's former majority commissioners have subpoenaed a Times-Tribune reporter in an attempt to verify the source for a story about a state grand jury investigation of the county prison. 

The newspapers will ask Dauphin County Court to quash the subpoena of staff writer Jennifer L. Henn under Pennsylvania's Shield Law, their attorney, Timothy J. Hinton Jr., said.

"The Shield Law is certainly applicable here," he said.

In a petition filed March 18 in Dauphin County by attorney Lawrence J. Moran, Commissioner Randy A. Castellani and former Commissioner Joseph J. Corcoran are seeking sanctions against the state attorney's general office for disclosing information about the grand jury's investigation of the prison.

The attorney general and Pennsylvania's 20th statewide grand jury have been investigating the prison for nearly a year. They are probing allegations of misuse of inmate labor and prison resources, drug trafficking and sex between guards and inmates.

The grand jury meets in Harrisburg, which is in Dauphin County.

Specifically, the petition maintains the attorney general's office was the source for a story written by Henn about Castellani and Corcoran's grand jury testimony that appeared in the newspapers on Jan. 12. The two testified in Harrisburg on Dec. 2.

The petition, which calls the disclosure illegal and improper, says it "cannot be legitimately disputed" that someone within the attorney general's office provided the newspapers with information.

In the subpoena of Henn, Castellani and Corcoran ask that she bring with her all documents, including notes, pertaining to a meeting with a representative or representatives of the attorney general's office on Jan. 9.

"This is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate the reporting process," said Lawrence K. Beaupre, managing editor of the Times-Tribune newspapers.

Hinton said the state Legislature created the Shield Law to prevent reporters from being subpoenaed to discuss their sources.

"We will be objecting to this subpoena under the Shield Law enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature and the protections offered by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," he said.

By law, jurors, attorneys and court personnel involved in grand jury proceedings are sworn to secrecy and can be held in contempt of court for revealing information, Moran said.

In addition to a contempt citation, Moran said, the court could impose other sanctions -- from fines to jail time -- based on its "feeling for punishment or deterrence for abuse of the grand jury."

"Depending on the court's evaluation of the breach, the court may feel there is a contamination of the grand jury process ... that invalidates anything that comes out of that grand jury," he said.

Kevin Harley, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said he could not comment on the petition, citing the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.

Teri Henning, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said ordering a reporter to disclose sources or unpublished information "will necessarily have a chilling effect on the free flow of information and will severely impact the public's right to know."

"Both the press and the public suffer when reporters are ordered to disclose information that they have obtained through the news gathering process," she said.