Arrest warrant issued for Plain Dealer reporter

[JoelHammond]

... stemming from story based on psych eval of serial killer.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/cuyahoga_county_judge_orders_a.html

 

[Moondoggy]

Note the reader comments at the end of the story. Most are actually supportive of the reporter. Maybe there's hope after all.
And I'll say it before someone else does ... I could work for the P-D, dammit! ;D

 

[mustangj17]

Get the interview suit ready, Ace.

 

[Ace]

I hate to wish bad things on people, but I am willing to make an exception.

Seriously, I hate these kinds of incidents where the court is trying to force reporters to give up sources.

 

[HorseWhipped]

Well, as long as the judge is pissed off, let's take off the gloves:

Tuesday's decision was not the first unusual action to come from Saffold. Some of those include:

# In August 1996, Saffold told a female defendant who pleaded guilty in a credit card fraud case that she needed to find a better man."Men are easy," the judge told the woman. "You can go sit at the bus stop, put on a short skirt, cross your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. It's the truth." Saffold went on to tell the defendant: "If you don't pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom and then they'll stop." ...

 

[Ace]

Well, as long as the judge is pissed off, let's take off the gloves:

Tuesday's decision was not the first unusual action to come from Saffold. Some of those include:

# In August 1996, Saffold told a female defendant who pleaded guilty in a credit card fraud case that she needed to find a better man."Men are easy," the judge told the woman. "You can go sit at the bus stop, put on a short skirt, cross your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. It's the truth." Saffold went on to tell the defendant: "If you don't pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom and then they'll stop." ...

I like a judge with a dose of pragmatism, eroticism, misogyny and the crazy.

 

[JimmyOlson]

I don't know the particulars of Ohio's shield law, but the fact that the state has a shield law would seemingly allow the reporter to keep his sources confidential. That is, after all, pretty much the point of a shield law.

Also, I found it interesting that the reporter's name wasn't correct on the arrest warrant (according to the story). That seems like too basic a mistake to be a mistake. It sounds like a judge wanting to scare a reporter (or the editors or the higher-ups) more than anything else.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Anybody else think this will not end well for the judge? The fact that she issued an informal order to appear and gave him an hour to comply looks reeeeeeally vindictive to me. Not the optimal quality in a judge.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Source comes forward, reporter saved from jail:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/county_judge_reveals_himself_a.html

 

[Mystery Meat II]

This gave me pause:

Plain Dealer Reporter Gabriel Baird will not be jailed for refusing to reveal the how the newspaper obtained a psychiatric evaluation of serial-killing suspect Anthony Sowell.

Used that way, it makes "serial-killing" look like a modifier, such as "tall" or "fat" or "left-handed". As though he's a serial-killing suspect in a robbery case or something.

 

[WriteThinking]

This gave me pause:

Plain Dealer Reporter Gabriel Baird will not be jailed for refusing to reveal the how the newspaper obtained a psychiatric evaluation of serial-killing suspect Anthony Sowell.

Used that way, it makes "serial-killing" look like a modifier, such as "tall" or "fat" or "left-handed". As though he's a serial-killing suspect in a robbery case or something.

You are right, and it should have given Plain-Dealer copy editors pause, as well.

It needed to say "Anthony Sowell, who has been charged in a case of serial killings," or something like that...or, at the least, "suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell," or some such thing.

As it is, it has Sowell as already convicted of the murders when, in fact, that is not the case.

 

[imjustagirl]

What the hell?

Sowell's lawyers said revealing the documents impugned the integrity of the court and will make it more difficult to find a fair jury.

The judge and prosecutors disagreed. Saffold said McGinty was within his rights to release the report.

Then what was all this about?

 

[Ace]

What the hell?

Sowell's lawyers said revealing the documents impugned the integrity of the court and will make it more difficult to find a fair jury.

The judge and prosecutors disagreed. Saffold said McGinty was within his rights to release the report.

Then what was all this about?

Judge being a wacko.

 

[SportsDude]

Well, as long as the judge is pissed off, let's take off the gloves:

Tuesday's decision was not the first unusual action to come from Saffold. Some of those include:

# In August 1996, Saffold told a female defendant who pleaded guilty in a credit card fraud case that she needed to find a better man."Men are easy," the judge told the woman. "You can go sit at the bus stop, put on a short skirt, cross your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. It's the truth." Saffold went on to tell the defendant: "If you don't pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom and then they'll stop." ...

I like a judge with a dose of pragmatism, eroticism, misogyny and the crazy.

Along with a heaping pile of vindictiveness.

I'm not an expert in journalism law, but the few cases I've read or come to know, almost all of these instances are brought up not out of poisoning the jury pool, breaking the law, etc., but because the journalist makes the state look like a bunch of assholes. Kind of like passing a serial rapist on a psychology test, then finding a bunch of bodies under his yard.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

And now the judge who issued the warrent is accused by The PD of posting anonymous comments related to case's the judge has presided over on The PD's site:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/post_258.html