Contempt Citations Lifted on Reporter, Photographer

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge, ruling that the state Constitution protects journalists from being cited for contempt, overturned charges Wednesday against a Los Angeles Times reporter and an intern photographer.

Judge Aurelio Munoz dismissed contempt citations against reporter Roxana Kopetman and photographer Roberto Santiago Bertero, who had refused to testify in a criminal case. They had been sentenced to jail and ordered to pay fines last week by a Long Beach Municipal Court judge when they refused to answer questions in court.

Kopetman spent about six hours in a courthouse lockup on Dec. 9 after Municipal Judge Elvira S. Austin issued the citation. She was freed on $1,000 bail. Bertero’s sentence was stayed pending Wednesday’s appeal.

“Whatever we do, one thing we cannot do is hold a reporter in contempt,” Munoz said in granting an appeal brought by attorneys for The Times. Munoz said the state Constitution bars judges from compelling reporters to testify by citing them for contempt.

Times attorneys had argued that the state Constitution and a section of the evidence code “explicitly state” that reporters cannot be cited for contempt because they do not have to disclose unpublished material.

Gerry Ensley, a Long Beach deputy city prosecutor, said, however, that the case is likely to be appealed to test the scope of the reporters’ shield law. He said the constitutional provisions were intended to protect reporters’ sources, not make them immune from testimony.

“If reporters are above the law, they are more powerful than (Richard M.) Nixon,” he said, drawing an analogy to the former President’s dispute with the courts during the Watergate scandal.

Kopetman and Bertero were called as witnesses to the arrest of a man accused of misdemeanor charges of carrying brass knuckles. The reporter and photographer, both assigned to The Times’ Long Beach Bureau, were accompanying a special task force of police officers when Sean Delaney, 21, and his girlfriend were arrested at a Long Beach shopping mall.

Called as a witness by the prosecution, Kopetman refused to answer questions outside of the scope of the account she wrote about the arrest. Kopetman and Bertero were cited for contempt when they refused to say whether officers asked Delaney for permission to search his jacket.

Austin ruled that the journalists were the only independent witnesses to the search, other than Delaney, his girlfriend and police, with “no ax to grind.”

Attorney Rex S. Heinke, who represented The Times, said Munoz’s ruling backs the constitutional protections.

“I think that the Superior Court properly enforced the explicit provision of the state Constitution, which prevents courts from holding reporters in contempt,” he said.

Deputy Public Defender Albert Menaster said his office would check with Delaney before deciding whether to appeal. Menaster has a writ pending before the appeal court challenging Munoz’s jurisdiction over the case.