High court decision gives reporters greater protection

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court Thursday strengthened Nevada's shield law that protects reporters from revealing confidential sources and also now from answering questions about stories that appear in the newspapers.

Justice Myron Leavitt, who wrote the majority opinion, said the privilege given reporters applies to published as well as unpublished information.

"The news shield statute protects all information, not just confidential information, which is obtained by a reporter in his or her capacity as a journalist and which is intended for dissemination," Leavitt said.

The case involves Glenn Puit, a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who wrote a story about a traffic accident in September 1996 in which five people were killed. The survivors sued the state, the Nevada Highway Patrol and a towing company.

The suit suggested the driver of the car that caused the accident, Michael Estrada, should have been placed in protective custody when he was found earlier by the side of the road, possibly in a drunken condition.

Trooper Steve Harney, the public information officer for the patrol at the time, was quoted by Puit in his story about the accident. When Harney was questioned during depositions on the suit, he said he could not remember whether he had made certain statements attributed to him in the articles.

The plaintiffs in the suit sought to question Puit about the stories to verify that Harney had made those statements. Puit invoked the shield law. The survivors filed a motion to compel Puit to answer but District Judge Mark Gibbons rejected it.

The Supreme Court said that Puit did not waive his shield privilege just because the story was published.

Leavitt wrote, "Nevada's news shield statute serves an important public interest and provides absolute protection against compelled disclosure to ensure that through the press, the public is able to make informed political, social and economic decisions."

But he added the law does not provide protection for information gathered in other capacities.

Leavitt also said, "We further recognize that although the news shield statute provides an absolute privilege to reporters engaged in the newsgathering process, there may be certain situations, e.g., when a defendant's countervailing constitutional rights are at issue, in which the news shield statute might have to yield so that justice may be served."

The law was originally enacted to protect reporters from revealing their confidential sources and the court said it is one of the most liberal in the country. If a reporter voluntarily discloses the information, the privilege is waived.

In this case, the survivors claimed Puit waived the privilege by his reporting the story in the newspaper. The court previously had held the news shield law applies only to confidential information. This extends the law to published information.

Leavitt said Puit's story had been widely disseminated and added, "...an effort to use the news media to produce evidence beneficial to a litigant is not a function of the news media, and the shield statute protects it from such abuse.

"Nevada's news shield statute is not limited to confidential sources, but includes any source."

Justice Bill Maupin wrote a concurring opinion, saying the testimony sought from Puit "is not so essential to petitioners' lawsuit as to justify a grant of extraordinary relief from this court."

Chief Justice Bob Rose and Justice Nancy Becker signed the majority opinion. And Justices Miriam Shearing and Deborah Agosti agreed with Maupin in the concurring decision.