People by Fischer v. Dan
| Decision Date | 23 February 1973 |
| Citation | 342 N.Y.S.2d 731,41 A.D.2d 687 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of New York By Robert E. FISCHER, Deputy Attorney General, Respondent, v. Stewart DAN and Roland Barnes, Appellants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Diebold & Millonzi, F. James Kane, Jr., Buffalo, for appellants.
Robert E. Fischer, Deputy Atty. Gen. (Brian F. Malone, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), Maxwell B. Spoont, Binghamton, for respondent.
Before DEL VECCHIO, J.P., and MARSH, WITMER, MOULE and HENRY, JJ.
Respondents Dan and Barnes who are respectively a newscaster and a television cameraman appeal from an order of Wyoming County Additional Special and Trial Term which granted the People's motion to require them to answer questions put to them before the grand jury which they then refused to answer. The asserted ground for such refusal was that they were protected by section 79--h of the Civil Rights Law and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution from disclosing any news or the source of any such news coming into their possession in the course of gathering or obtaining news for broadcast by the television station by which they were professionally employed. The questions which they refused to answer did not require them to disclose news or the sources of their news, information or knowledge but merely asked them to testify about events which they had observed personally. In our opinion the provisions of section 79--h of the Civil Rights Law afford appellants the privilege of refusing to divulge the identity of any informant who has supplied them with information but the statute does not permit them to refuse to testify about events which they observed personally including the identities of the persons whom they had observed. The provisions of section 79--h are similar to the provisions of Kentucky Revised Statute 421.100 which provides: 'No person shall be compelled to disclose in any legal proceeding or trial before any court, or before any grand or petit jury . . . the source of any information procured or obtained by him and published in a newspaper or by a radio or television broadcasting station by which he is engaged or employed.' In Branzburg v. Pound, Ky., 461 S.W.2d 345, affd. sub nom. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 the Kentucky Court of Appeals construed the Kentucky statute as affording a newsman the privilege of refusing to divulge the identity of an informant who supplied him with information but held that the statute did not permit a reporter to refuse to testify...
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