Pa. High Court: Reporter Can Shield Grand Jury Sources
Citing Pennsylvania’s Shield Law, the state supreme court ruled 4-1 that a Scranton Times-Tribune reporter doesn’t have to reveal the identity of a confidential source used in a story about a grand jury investigation of prison brutality.
The underlying case involves a 2004 story in which then Times-Tribune reporter Jennifer Henn wrote that two former county commissioners didn’t cooperate when they appeared before the grand jury in a statewide probe of the Lackawanna County Prison.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille declared that, “The news media have a right to report news, regardless of how the information was received,” the Times-Tribune reports.
Grand jury witnesses can talk about their own testimony, but otherwise grand jury proceedings are secret, the Associated Press notes.
The decision, released Thursday, upholds an appellate panel decision which reversed Lackawanna County Judge Robert A. Mazzoni’s ruling creating a “crime-fraud” exception to the Shield Law. The high court opined that Mazzoni created an exception where none existed.
