Legal experts: California reporter did not commit crime

[WestVirginiaRebel]

AP News

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A battle between the press and police is playing out in politically liberal San Francisco after police raided a freelance reporter’s home and office seeking to uncover the source of a leaked police report into the unexpected death of the city’s former elected public defender.

Journalist Bryan Carmody did not commit a crime when he acquired and published a police report, said First Amendment expert David Snyder because a police report is “not a confidential, legally protected document” and its disclosure and publication is lawful.

Snyder said a journalist who participated in unlawfully acquiring information could be successfully prosecuted for a crime, but that was not the case here.

Carmody said he received the report from a source and did not pay for it, though legal experts argue doing so would not have been a crime. Still, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said the journalist “crossed the line,” motivated by profit or animosity toward the late public defender, Jeff Adachi.

An autopsy found Adachi died Feb. 22 of a mixture of cocaine and alcohol, compromising an already bad heart.

Attorney Duffy Carolan, who represents several media organizations siding with Carmody, agrees that the public has constitutional rights to public records.

“The impact of trying to criminalize disclosure of public records, whether or not it violated internal policy or practice, will have a profound effect on public employees’ willingness to disclose public records,” she said. “It would have a chilling effect.”

________

The right to know?