Duffy Obtains Court Order to Bar Story

A San Diego County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday preventing The Times from publishing any information about security measures installed at the home of San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy.

The unusual court order, signed by Judge Jeffrey Miller at the request of an attorney for the Sheriff’s Department, states that The Times is prohibited from publishing any information regarding the “nature, layout, or configuration of security measures in” Duffy’s home or any information about the address of the house.

The judge’s order also prohibits The Times from publishing “any information that would be a threat to his personal safety and security, or to the safety and security of his family.”

In seeking the court order, Sheriff’s Department lawyer Janet Houts, along with Sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Cooke, told the judge that they believe any article about such matters could seriously compromise the personal safety of the sheriff and his wife, Linda, who live in a newly built home in Scripps Ranch.

“I believe that great or irreparable harm will occur” if the order isn’t granted, Houts said in legal papers.

Dale Fetherling, editor of the San Diego County Edition of The Times, on Thursday night said: “We are very surprised and disturbed by Judge Miller’s order. We believe the issuance of the order is clearly unconstitutional.

“I have referred the matter to our counsel, who will seek to have it set aside on Friday.”

Judge Miller has set a court hearing at 11 a.m. today on the matter.

The Times began asking questions about security measures inside Duffy’s home after publishing an article Wednesday about a special arrangement Duffy has set up for law enforcement protection at his home. That story disclosed that, although the sheriff lives in the city of San Diego, he requires sheriff’s deputies from the Poway station to cross into San Diego to respond to all emergency burglar alarms at his residence.

Lt. Liz Foster, a spokeswoman in the Sheriff’s Department, said Thursday that the Sheriff’s Department’s Astrea helicopter also responds to all alarms at Duffy’s home.

Cooke, in his legal declaration provided to the judge, said he notified Foster, his superior, when The Times asked questions about other security measures taken by Duffy.

“I received a telephone call from Richard Serrano, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times,” Cooke said. “He asked me certain questions in preparation of writing an article, which was to include information about the layout, structure, interior and contents of the sheriff’s personal residence, including security measures he may have for his protection and the protection of his family.”

Cooke said he and Foster “determined that such information, if printed, posed a hazard to the sheriff’s safety and invaded his privacy.”

He said that Duffy has received “a number of threats to his life, as has his wife.” Cooke added: “He lives in a single-family residence, which is easily identifiable and accessible to anyone who may want to find him and carry out these threats.”

Fetherling said The Times has been extremely careful not to divulge Duffy’s address or give other specific information leading to the location of his home.

“Prior restraint” court orders have been sought in rare instances dealing with national-security issues. The classic example occurred before the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers and, in that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the threat posed by publication of an article must be not just one of serious harm, but one of “grave damage” that is “direct, immediate and irreparable” to national security.

Outside of national security matters, such cases have rarely been successful in the courts.