Post reporter on objectivity

Journalists cannot and should not be objective, said T.R. Reid, a Washington Post reporter who also does commentary for NPR, to BYU journalism students on campus this morning. Reid, who has written eight books, including The United States of Europe, said that American journalism should move to the European model, in which news organizations are overtly partisan. Readers must read two or three newspapers to get the full story, he said, but at least journalists can then be honest with themselves.

Distortion of news?

The little note posted by The Salt Lake Tribune today (see here) indicates that BYU's athletics programs overall are in the top 25 in Division I while the University of Utah's programs are at 52. Why, then, did both the Trib and the D-News do stories recently (see here and here) gushing about how well the U.'s programs were doing and, by implication if not explicit statement, how poorly BYU's were doing?

Coverage of "courteous cop"

The Salt Lake Tribune (here) and Deseret Morning News (here) covered yesterday's decision by the Utah Supreme Court affirming a lower court's judgment tossing out evidence uncovered by a police officer attempting to give a cold man his jacket and shoes.

Congrats

My sincere congratulations to the Deseret Morning News staff members recognized this week in the Mark E. Peterson awards banquet. Among those honored were Dennis Romboy and Alan Edwards, J.D.

No more Mr. Nice Guy

The Utah Supreme Court held today that a Provo police officer who tried to play the role of a Good Samaritan by providing a shoeless and jacket-less man with some protection from 20-degree weather violated the man's Fourth Amendment rights.

In State v. Peterson, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Utah Court of Appeals and held that evidence of illegal drug use seized by a Provo police officer in 2001 should be suppressed because the officer found the drugs only after retrieving a man's coat and shoes to protect him from the 20-degree weather outside. This is a weird case all around: When police entered the Provo home, the man was hiding in a closet. The Utah Supreme Court seemed to think the officer should not have retrieved the man's own jacket, in which the drugs were found, but should have (1) given him a blanket, or (2) given him a police jacket, or (3) put him in back of a police car.

Rehnquist makes joke "at expense of Mormon Church"

The big news in the Supreme Court yesterday was the return of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who had been absent for five months while receiving medical treatment. In an audio file available here, NPR's Nina Totenberg reports that Rehnquist "made a wry joke at the expense of the Mormon Church."

Totenberg does not disclose the content of the joke, and I could not find references to it in other news coverage of Rehnquist's return (New York Times story is available here).

One of the two cases argued yesterday was Cutter v. Wilkinson, No. 03-9877 (merits briefs available here), which involves an Establishment Clause challenge to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. That law requires states to lift unnecessary burdens on religious exercise; several Ohio prison inmates claimed to have been denied access to religious publications. One of the chief cases at issue is Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987). In that case, an engineer at Deseret Gym in Salt Lake City was fired because he lost his temple recommend; the Court held that a statutory exemption to allow religious organizations to discriminate on the basis of religion did not constitute unconstitutional establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment.

None of the inmates in Cutter v. Wilkinson is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I'm not sure in what context Rehnquist mentioned the Church. I guess we'll have to wait for oral argument transcripts to become available.

Back to business

I have not blogged much in the last week because my plate has been full of NCAA Tournament basketball games. The first two days of the tournament, in particular, are among the best two days of the year -- 16 games each day. I no longer fill out a bracket before the games begin, but I like to fill my bracket out as the teams actually advance.

In getting back to business, The Salt Lake Tribune noted today that "Huntsman fills court commission appointments" with "several high-powered attorneys and two women." (I wonder if the Tribune thinks those categories are mutually exclusive?)

More Sunshine

In its continuing coverage of Sunshine Week, the Deseret Morning News today reported that Utah's Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) is the third-best such law in the nation.

Sunshine Week

Yesterday marked the beginning of the first annual Sunshine Week. To mark the occasion, the Deseret Morning News published several stories (here and here) yesterday about openness (or lack thereof) in local governments.

NO(W) on Griffith

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is urging the Senate to defeat the nomination of Tom Griffith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Another ACLU suit vs. Mormons

Four Wyoming residents and a Seattle environmental group, represented by the ACLU, have sued the federal government over the lease of the Martin's Cove land to the Church of Jesus Christ. The ACLU's statement is here and the complaint is here. Meanwhile, The Salt Lake Tribune provided coverage here and the Deseret Morning News coverage is available here.

Gag order gone too far?

The New York Times reports that comedian Jay Leno has to hand over joke-telling duties about Michael Jackson to guest hosts because Leno, as a possible witness in the Jackson case in Santa Barbara County, may be subject to gag order issued by the state trial judge.

Ho-hum coverage

Salt Lake City's two daily newspapers provided rather simplistic coverage of yesterday's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the nomination of Tom Griffith for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Deseret Morning News merely ran a wire story, while The Salt Lake Tribune, in a pedestrian fashion, recited the dispute over law licensing but failed to mention any Title IX issues.

Meanwhile, Fox News left no doubt it thinks the dispute over Griffith's failure to pay bar fees is a trifle being carried on by partisan hacks. What's unclear about the Fox News story (and this won't come as a big surprise) is whether this is news or opinion.

Griffith hearing (again)

Legal Times reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee today heard testimony from BYU general counsel Tom Griffith regarding his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The story concludes:

Because the Judiciary Committee has two more Republicans than Democrats, Griffith's nomination is expected to clear the committee as early as next week. But it is unclear whether Senate Democrats will decide to filibuster the nominee and, if they do, whether his supporters can muster the requisite 60 votes needed to cut off debate and bring Griffith's nomination to an up or down majority vote.

Sweet citation

I am cited on page 99, footnote 38, of this well-reasoned opinion by Judge Robert W. Sweet of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Sweet wrote an excellent opinion finding a common-law reporter's privilege, in accordance with Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, in the case of two journalists whose telephone records were sought by the federal government. Judge Sweet surveyed the laws of the 50 states on reporter's privilege and cited to my 2003 article on Utah's reporter's privilege, which was published in the BYU Journal of Public Law.

'People' oppose Griffith

People for the American Way, which has been identified as a liberal political action group, opposes the confirmation of BYU general counsel Tom Griffith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. PFAW sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee purportedly detailing how Griffith's appearance before that committee in November actually undermined his cause because he did not assauge fears about his "extreme positions" on Title IX and because he did not satisfactorily answer questions about bar license problems.