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BALCO Reporters Don't Balk At Jail Order

By Vaughn Ververs

September 22, 2006 / 3:00 PM EDT / CBS News

(AP Photo/The Chronicle, Darryl Bush)

The case of two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who reported details from federal grand jury testimony took a big step forward yesterday when a federal judge said he's ready to sent them to prison – for up to 18 months. The reporters, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada blew the lid off of the investigation into BALCO, providing testimony and details about the laboratory that cast a cloud of suspicion over baseball slugger Barry Bonds and other athletes. Stories written by the two reporters led to a surge of interest into the use of steroids in baseball and high-profile congressional hearings into the matter. Here's more of what happened yesterday:

After a three-hour hearing in which reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams vowed never to give up their sources, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said he would send the journalists to federal prison if they lost their appeals of his earlier order that they tell a grand jury who leaked the testimony.
White rejected a request by the reporters' lawyers to impose fines instead, saying that was unlikely to make them talk. "The only appropriate sanction is to incarcerate these two individuals to the full extent permitted'' by law, White said.

A new grand jury is investigating the leaks provided to the reporters and it is slated to run out in 18 months. But the two could remain in jeopardy even past that time if a new grand jury is assembled when the current one expires and there is no federal shield law to protect them from serving jail time. Fainaru-Wada yesterday said, "I do not wish to spend even a minute in jail. … However, I cannot -- and will not -- betray the promises I have made over the past three years" to confidential sources." The two are appealing the judge's ruling and are optimistic about the outcome, Fainaru-Wada said:

I continue to hope and feel that we are going to win at some point. … We hope that someone is going to find some argument in the law. We have a good case and someone is going to recognize we have room here.

Despite the lack of a federal shield law, the two reporters have argued that their reporting has served the public good, which outweighs the leak of secret grand jury testimony. The judge has said the fact that the two are journalists does not protect them from the obligation to obey the subpoenas they have been served and asked, "when do we get to choose what laws we're going to obey?"

Very few journalists, at least those who want to continue to work in the profession, would give up their sources in a situation like this. If they won't do so at the threat of prison time, would they do it a month, two or even six later? It's unlikely they would ever talk, which leads me to wonder what sending them to jail could possibly accomplish. What do you think?