Generally, journalists have a significant amount of legal leeway in gathering information for stories. Typically, if there are issues about who a journalist is speaking to, it’s the person talking to the journalist who is at risk of finding themselves on the wrong side of the law.
But that isn’t always the case. In February 1982, reporters from the Boulder Daily Camera were covering a first-degree murder trial, and the prosecutor was seeking the death penalty.
The case was being heard in the Boulder District Court and had garnered a significant amount of public attention. According to the opinion in the case against the Daily Camera journalists, In re Stone, some citizens were concerned that intimidation tactics were being used on the jurors.
During the jury selection process of the murder case, the entire jury venire was ordered twice by the court not to speak with anyone about the case or allow anyone to discuss the case with them.
Soon after, the Daily Camera reporters contacted four preliminarily qualified members of the jury venire to ask if they had been intimidated by the defendant’s presence and the death penalty voir dire, according to the opinion.
About a week later, the court became aware of the contacts and, after questioning, dismissed the 14 jurors that had been preliminarily qualified, requiring the court to go through the entire jury selection process again.
Due to the kerfuffle, the trial court, prosecutor and defense attorney jointly filed a contempt motion against the journalists. A special prosecutor and different judge were appointed to handle the motion.
The trial court found that two of the journalists, Michael Stone and Robert Knaus, knew about the order barring prospective jurors from speaking with anybody.
The court also found that while their intent wasn’t to interfere with the administration of justice, that it “was volitional and committed when they knew their conduct was wrongful,” according to the opinion. It also held that their First Amendment rights weren’t violated, found them in contempt of court and ordered them to pay for the additional costs incurred for the criminal trial and the special prosecutor.
The case against the journalists went all the way to the Colorado Court of Appeals, where a division of the court affirmed the trial court’s decision holding the two journalists in contempt.