Plaintiff in Suit Wants College Paper’s Photos : Subpoena Issue Revived at CSUN

Members of the journalism faculty at California State University, Northridge have averted a threat by the state attorney general’s office to subpoena unpublished photographs owned by the campus newspaper. But, faculty members learned Tuesday, they now face a similar subpoena threat from private attorneys.

The photographs show campus police subduing a student suffering an epileptic seizure. Both sides in a civil lawsuit filed after the incident say they want to use the photographs to help prepare their case.

An attorney for plaintiff Behnam Ataee said Tuesday he will subpoena the unpublished photos within two weeks. Ataee’s suit alleges that police used excessive force in subduing him.

Cynthia Z. Rawitch, an assistant journalism professor and the Daily Sundial’s publisher, said she expects the faculty to fight the subpoena in court.

The issue could become a test of whether campus newspapers at state colleges are merely arms of the state or have the same rights as independent newspapers and other news outlets.

News organizations frequently refuse to comply with such subpoenas, contending that they interfere with the gathering of news and that California’s so-called reporter’s shield law protects them from being forced to surrender materials that are not published or broadcast.

The issue surfaced several months ago when Deputy Atty. Gen. Laura Lee Gold asked the journalism faculty, which publishes the Sundial as part of the journalism curriculum, for the photographs to help defend the university against Ataee’s suit.

The faculty rejected the request, saying that turning over the photos “would make the paper little more than an information gatherer for third parties, rather than an independent news organization,” Rawitch said.

In response, Gold said in December that the photos could be very important to the state’s defense and that she “probably will obtain a subpoena if something can’t be worked out with the journalism faculty.”

Gold said at the time that she considers the Sundial an agency of the state because it operates on state property under the direction of faculty members, who are state employees. She said the faculty was therefore obligated to assist the state in defending the university against the suit.

In an interview Tuesday, however, Gold said she has decided that “while I want those photos, it just isn’t worth the fight to get them from the journalism faculty.”

Behrouz Shafie, Ataee’s attorney, said Tuesday that he was sorry to learn of Gold’s decision. “I was hoping she would get those photos for us,” Shafie said.

Shafie said he would argue that the Sundial, as an arm of the state, is a defendant in the suit, not an independent news organization uninvolved in the case. As a state agency, he said, the paper cannot refuse to surrender the material, even if it was not published.

Rawitch said the faculty is not likely to surrender the photos to Shafie. “I don’t know what our next move is. But, if we wouldn’t turn them over to the state, I can’t imagine we will turn them over to outside attorneys,” she said.

Shafie said the 22-year-old Ataee is suing the state for unspecified damages on grounds that police used unnecessary force in subduing him during the seizure.

Campus police say Ataee threatened other students with violence during the Sept., 1983, incident.