Lawyers for the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday filed a challenge to District Judge Jessica Peterson’s decision barring three of the newspaper’s journalists from witnessing an alleged victim testify in Nathan Chasing Horse’s sexual assault trial.
Peterson ejected Review-Journal reporters Noble Brigham, Akiya Dillon and Bizuayehu Tesfaye from the courtroom on Wednesday after they refused to promise not to publish the name one of Chasing Horse’s alleged victims. Executive Editor Glenn Cook previously said the news organization does not typically publish the names of sexual assault victims, but has the right to do so if it chooses.
The filing argued that Peterson’s actions were a demand for editorial control over court proceedings and amounted to prior restraint, a legal term referring to government actions that prohibit speech before it happens.
Attorneys asked the Nevada Supreme Court for emergency relief to make the trial court rescind existing prior restraints, prohibit the court from entering other prior restraints, and prohibit the court from banning Review-Journal reporters from Chasing Horse’s trial.
“The Chasing Horse trial is ongoing, and the trial court has made repeated efforts to unconstitutionally restrict court access and punish LVRJ’s exercise of freedom of the press,” Review-Journal lawyer Maggie McLetchie wrote in the filing.
Anonymity dispute
Peterson told reporters last week that she had the authority to limit press coverage of an alleged victim of Chasing Horse and asked the Review-Journal to not name the victim. When a Review-Journal reporter told Peterson that the newspaper would not agree to withhold information disclosed in an open court, Peterson said she would close the courtroom or remove the Review-Journal’s access to the trial.
Peterson ejected two Review-Journal reporters and a photographer from the courtroom after refusing a reporter’s request for time so a lawyer could arrive and respond. The three were allowed to return after the alleged victim finished testifying.
“I am not going to allow this victim to be revictimized by the Las Vegas Review-Journal,” Peterson said, adding she would hold the newspaper in contempt of court if it published the alleged victim’s name. The Review-Journal has not previously published the alleged victim’s name.
The newspaper’s challenge contended that, because the alleged victim was planning to testify using a pseudonym and had already been identified by name during the trial and in public court records, “the prior restraint and ejection of LVRJ from the courtroom did nothing to protect” the victim.
“To be clear, agreeing to the trial court’s restrictions — even if LVRJ did not intend to report the victim’s name — would have required them to give up their First Amendment rights to be free from government control over the content of their reporting,” McLetchie wrote.
Other news organizations and members of the public were allowed to observe the testimony, the filing claimed, but Peterson did not ask at least one television journalist to agree to the order she mandated for Review-Journal reporters. The filing argued that banning the three reporters from observing the testimony deprived the Review-Journal of the First Amendment right to attend criminal trials.
“Due to LVRJ’s extensive reporting, the banishment also limited, by proxy, the public’s ability to access information and violated Nevada public policy,” McLetchie wrote.
When McLetchie arrived to the courtroom Wednesday to challenge Peterson’s decision in person, she wrote that she struggled to enter the courtroom because a marshal was blocking the entry doors.
After she was eventually allowed entry into the courtroom, McLetchie told Peterson that she could not require reporters to make agreements about what they would publish as a condition to access court proceedings.
“The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its reporters have journalistic ethics they abide by in their reporting,” McLetchie said. “There’s no suggestion that they’ve intended to report this victim’s name.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney William Rowles, however, sided with Peterson’s decision in the courtroom and called the Review-Journal’s attempts to dispute the judge’s request “outrageous.”
“All we are asking is to protect the identity of a child who was sexually assaulted on video,” Rowles said.
Past press limitations
The Review-Journal’s challenge contended that Peterson’s order was part of a series of events showing hostility to the newspaper and free speech.
McLetchie wrote that Peterson criticized Brigham’s reporting on statements made during a pretrial hearing despite the statements having been taken directly from a recording that the court provided him. Additionally, Peterson described court access as a “privilege” rather than a right protected by the First Amendment, the filing claimed.
Peterson previously attempted to restrict media coverage of the Chasing Horse trial through a “decorum order” she issued on the first day of jury selection. Her order demanded, among other conditions, that the press not conduct interviews with parties or witnesses at the Regional Justice Center while the case was pending and that reporters “not disclose or publish any personal identifying information” without the permission of victims, witnesses and jurors.
Peterson walked back these conditions after receiving a letter from the Review-Journal saying her order “infringes on the constitutional right to gather the news.” Some legal experts said Peterson’s proposed restrictions amounted to an unconstitutional gag order.
Peterson’s amended “decorum order” mandated reporters have approved media requests to cover the trial and prohibited reporting on the identity of a testifying Metropolitan Police Department officer. Failure to comply with these rules, the order stated, could result in “revocation of media approval for coverage, expulsion from the courtroom, and other appropriate sanctions as determined by the Court.”
McLetchie argued that these restrictions are unconstitutional.
“Attending court proceedings is not a mere ‘privilege,’ as the trial court characterized it,” McLetchie wrote. “Rather, there is a well-established, presumptive First Amendment and common law right of access to proceedings in criminal matters.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Read more on Las Vegas Review-Journal
