After Gag Order : Appeal by Press Halts Hearings of 2 in S&L; Robbery

The state Court of Appeal on Thursday suspended pretrial hearings for two Tarzana teen-agers accused of armed bank robbery, following a protest by the Daily News of Van Nuys of a judge’s order that news reporters not talk to participants in the proceedings.

The appeal court acted only three hours after the newspaper filed an emergency writ with the court Thursday afternoon. The writ argued that an order barring reporters from the hearings and forbidding them to question participants violated the U. S. and California constitutions, said Dan Marmalefsky, attorney for the Daily News.

The Los Angeles Times planned to file a letter with the Court of Appeal today “supporting the position taken by the Daily News and urging the court to overturn the judge’s unconstitutional order,” said Jeffrey S. Klein, The Times’ staff counsel.

Press and Public Barred From Hearings

Sylmar Juvenile Court Judge Burton S. Katz on Monday ordered the public and press barred from hearings to determine whether two 17-year-old Taft High School students, Michael Morrison and Mark Berman, should be tried as adults or juveniles for the armed robbery of an Encino savings and loan.

Katz ruled there was sufficient reason to believe that, if the youths were ordered tried as adults and therefore received a jury trial, prospective jurors might be prejudiced by news stories reporting testimony at the hearings.

The judge also issued an order “directing the press not to contact, directly or indirectly, any person who attended any future hearings,” Marmalefsky said.

Marmalefsky then asked the higher court to suspend all proceedings until the constitutional questions could be resolved.

The higher court responded with a temporary stay halting the proceedings and asking for written arguments from those involved, including the judge, the district attorney’s office and attorneys for the two youths.

A gag order directed at participants in the trial, forbidding them to discuss the case in public, “is one thing,” Klein said. Such orders frequently have been upheld in the past.

“But this order went beyond that,” Klein said. “It ordered the press not to talk to any of these people. That raises some serious constitutional questions.”

Morrison and Berman were charged with the May 23 robbery of $4,000 from Encino Savings and Loan. Morrison has also been charged with a $1,200 armed robbery at the Barclay’s Bank in Tarzana on Jan. 3. Both youths have also been charged with stealing three cars at gunpoint.

In a separate action, Morrison’s father, Allan Eugene Morrison, was charged last week with extortion, cocaine possession and three counts of loan sharking. The elder Morrison, owner of a pornographic book store in Lennox, served a prison term for bank robbery more than 20 years ago.