Court Rules He Doesn’t Have to Name Sources : Reporter Cleared of Contempt Charge

An Oceanside newspaper reporter found in contempt of court and ordered to jail for refusing to disclose confidential sources used in an article he wrote on an alleged murder-for-hire plot was cleared of the charge Friday by the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Writing for the three-member court, Justice Edward T. Butler held in a four-page decision that the defense attorney for one of the men charged in the murder case “did not present any facts to support” his request for seeking the sources’ identities.

” . . . There is nothing to show whether the defense attempted to pursue (leads) nor how (the reporter) might have known of them to the exclusion of the investigating agencies,” Butler wrote. Appellate Court Justices Jerald Brown and Don R. Work concurred in the ruling.

Bob McPhail, a police and courts reporter for the Oceanside Blade-Tribune, was cited for contempt and ordered to jail in November after he refused to reveal anonymous sources used in an article about the slaying of Marine Staff Sgt. Carlos G. Troiani. An initial appeal of the citation to North County Superior Court failed, prompting McPhail’s bid to the Court of Appeal.

The reporter, who once faced an indefinite jail sentence for defending his right to protect the identities of his sources, was elated with the decision.

“I’m personally delighted, and I’m gratified because the decision upholds an important safeguard for the free press,” McPhail, 33, said. “I also am grateful to the publisher and editors of the Blade-Tribune for backing me on the issue.”

McPhail’s saga began in October, when he wrote an article detailing the Aug. 10 slaying of Troiani that relied heavily on unidentified “sources close to the investigation.”

Defense Objection Prosecutors in the murder case, now in preliminary hearings in Vista Municipal Court, have charged that the victim’s wife, Laura Troiani, plotted to murder her husband and paid five Marines $500 each to do it. Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Burns, who is handling the case, charges that Troiani wanted her husband dead to collect from his $35,000 military life insurance policy.

Daniel Cronin, a defense attorney for Marine Lance Cpl. Mark J. Schulz, 19, objected to the article, saying McPhail “knows more than I do” about the case. He then subpoenaed the reporter and his notes. Cronin argued that because McPhail might have uncovered information of use to his client, the First Amendment guarantee given reporters was outweighed by the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to due process.

But Burns, charging that Cronin’s attack on the reporter’s story reflects a “lack of familiarity with the case,” argued that McPhail’s article contained nothing more than information already available in police reports or in the district attorney’s own investigation.