Riley v. City of Chester
| Decision Date | 14 December 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-2528,79-2528 |
| Citation | 612 F.2d 708 |
| Parties | 5 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 393, 5 Media L. Rep. 2161 William RILEY v. CITY OF CHESTER and Joseph F. Battle, Mayor of the City of Chester, and John Owens, Chief of Police of the City of Chester, Geraldine Oliver, a witness for the Plaintiff, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Joseph F. Lawless, Jr., Petrikin, Wellman, Damico & Carney, Media, Pa., Francis J. Sullivan, Fairless Hills, Pa., for appellant Geraldine Oliver.
Samuel E. Klein, Joseph F. Roda, Kohn, Savett, Marion & Graf, P.C., Philadelphia, Pa., for amici-intervenors, Bucks County Courier Times, etc.
Arthur Levy, Levy & Surrick, Media, Pa., for City of Chester and others.
John M. Gallagher, Jr., Richard, Brian, DiSanti & Hamilton, David R. Black, Media, Pa., for appellee William Riley.
Before GIBBONS, HIGGINBOTHAM and SLOVITER, Circuit Judges.
OPINION OF COURT
This is an appeal by Geraldine Oliver, a staff writer for the Delaware County Daily Times for approximately 26 years, who was adjudged by the district court to be in civil contempt because, when questioned by counsel for the plaintiff in a civil action pending in the district court, she refused to identify the source of her information for a newspaper article she wrote. This case raises the question of the circumstances in which a reporter can be compelled to disclose the source of her news stories.
1. The action in the court below was filed on October 19, 1979 by William Riley, a policeman employed by the City of Chester, who was a candidate for mayor in the election to be held November 6, 1979. Defendant Joseph F. Battle is the mayor of the City of Chester and was also a candidate for reelection as mayor. 1 Defendant John Owens is Chief of Police of the City of Chester. The complaint, which was filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleges that defendants and other employees of the City of Chester violated plaintiff's constitutional rights with respect to his freedom to conduct his campaign for public office by practices which include surveillance of the plaintiff, conducting investigations of plaintiff's performance of duties as a Chester policeman, and public announcement of those investigations. Plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction in the court below restraining defendants from their surveillance of his person and residence and from conducting spurious investigations of his performance as a policeman.
2. A hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction was held in the trial court on October 29, 1979 and October 30, 1979. In the course of that hearing the order of civil contempt which is the subject of this appeal was entered.
3. As part of his testimony in support of the motion for preliminary injunction, plaintiff Riley stated that there were leaks to the press with respect to internal investigations conducted by the Police Department after he had become a candidate for mayor, that the newspaper articles reporting information from his police personnel file contained some inaccurate information, that he never authorized anyone to release such information and that no one asked his permission. (TR 1-9, TR 1-15-26). Plaintiff submitted as exhibits a series of newspaper articles which, Inter alia, referred to various investigations.
4. Immediately following Mr. Riley's testimony, plaintiff called as a witness the appellant, Geraldine Oliver, and the following questioning, relevant to this appeal, took place:
BY MR. BLACK:
Q Ms. Oliver, what is your occupation?
A I am a staff writer for the Delaware County Daily Times.
Q How long have you written for the Daily Times?
A Between 26 and 27 years to the best of my knowledge.
Q Have you in any way, shape or form covered the election for the office of Mayor in the City of Chester in 1979?
A As a side bar perhaps. Only as a staff writer on general assignment.
Q As a staff writer on the newspaper.
A Right.
BY MR. BLACK:
Q Ms. Oliver . . . I ask you to refer to what His Honor has directed me to mark as P-2-A. 2
A Well, P-2-A is the same article you referred to before and it is in the Delaware County Daily Times, and I did in fact write that article.
Q You did in fact write it.
Did you write it at the time, on August 21, 1979?
A On or about that date, yes. I'm not sure of the date of the publication. I would have written it the day before publication. (The article was published on August 22, 1979.)
Q Did you observe Mr. Riley's personnel record?
A No.
Q What was the source of your information?
MR. LAWLESS: Objection.
A I cannot answer that.
(TR 1-104-107).
The basis on which Ms. Oliver refused to answer that question was the First Amendment and the Pennsylvania Shield Law, 42 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 5942.
5. Although plaintiff's counsel argued that the Pennsylvania Shield Law was inapplicable and that the privilege should not apply, he did not move to cite appellant for contempt. The trial court directed that appellant answer and when she refused again, sua sponte cited appellant for civil contempt (TR 1-114). Later that day the court issued a Memorandum and signed the written Order of contempt.
6. Plaintiff's next witness, Chester Police Department Inspector Timothy Gill, who is involved in internal police investigations, testified that he had been requested to investigate Mr. Riley three times. The first time the request was made by retired Chief Hamilton on July 13, 1979, with respect to an investigation he was conducting regarding leaks of confidential information from the Police Department about rental cars being used by vice officers and raids being conducted by the Vice Unit. The second investigation was ordered by Chief Hamilton on August 21, 1979 in regard to Riley's failure to have a proper Pennsylvania
driver's license, and the third investigation, ordered by Chief John Owens, related to reports in a Philadelphia Bulletin article that Riley has brought bootleg whiskey into the State of Pennsylvania. (TR 1-119-126; TR 1-136-137). He also testified that before May of this year, he had investigated Riley with respect to some other matters, including the use of sick days (TR 1-127) and the failure to take a citizen's complaint report (TR 1-139-140). Inspector Gill was questioned about the confidentiality of the investigation reports and testified as follows:
BY MR. BLACK:
Q Well, let me ask you this, Inspector Gill: Are you personally authorized to release information concerning investigation of a policeman for say abuse of sick time?
A No, sir.
Q Are you personally authorized to release publicly information concerning your investigation of a policeman for an incident like having whisky from out of state at a political rally?
A I don't release any information, sir.
Q Who else besides yourself, Inspector, investigates internal police matters?
A There is different grades of investigations in Department, O.K.?
Some of them can be immediately handled by a supervisor, and some go on further.
There are two other inspectors besides myself. Inspector Iacono and Inspector William Hoopes.
From time to time there have been internal investigations. The Chief of Police has the authority I am certain he does he can assign detectives or anyone else that he feels can do the job and he will do this from time to time.
I got to fully state to you in the past three to four months most of my work has been tied up in other matters other than internal investigations, and I have been very busy, and I am sure there were numerous investigations that the Chief of Police handed out to other inspectors or other officers in the Department.
MR. BLACK: Thank you, Inspector. That is all I have.
(TR 1-130-131).
Plaintiff's counsel did not seek from Inspector Gill the identity of any of the other persons who had access to the files regarding these investigations.
7. Plaintiff then called Gwendolyn McKinney, a staff reporter for the Philadelphia Tribune, who testified that Mayor Battle and Riley himself were the sources of her newspaper articles concerning police investigations into Riley's conduct (TR 2-10-34). Ms. McKinney noted that her articles actually attributed statements of those investigations to Mayor Battle (TR 2-11).
8. Plaintiff's next witness was Mayor Joseph F. Battle, who admitted making statements to reporters (TR 2-54-59, TR 2-73-77), including Geraldine Oliver (TR 2-66-73), and also admitted that most of the newspaper reports attributed to his statements regarding investigations of officer Riley were accurate, although he stated that there were times when the newspaper articles did not report his statements exactly as he said them (TR 2-60, 2-65). Mayor Battle specified that he had informed reporters about allegations of Riley's misbehavior including alleged sick leave abuses (TR 2-57-60, 2-73), possible election campaign violations (TR 2-62), unauthorized use of work time for coffee breaks (TR 2-69-70) and leaks of police information to the press (TR 2-52-56). With respect to his conversations with Geraldine Oliver, he testified (TR 2-72).
9. Thereafter Michael Hobbs, a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer, testified that Mayor Battle was one of the sources of information used by him in writing newspaper articles concerning internal police department investigations of Riley, and that 10. Plaintiff's final witness was John Michael Roman, general assignment reporter for the Delaware County Daily Times, who testified...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Mitchell v. Superior Court, S.F. 24685
...Transamerican Press, Inc. (5th Cir.1980) 621 F.2d 721, 725, cert. den., 450 U.S. 1041, 101 S.Ct. 1759, 68 L.Ed.2d 238; Riley v. City of Chester, supra, 612 F.2d 708, 715; Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp. (10th Cir.1977) 563 F.2d 433, 438; Carey v. Hume (D.C.Cir.1972) 492 F.2d 631, 636, cert. de......
-
Contempt of Wright, Matter of
...public interest in the information sought." Zelenka v. State, 83 Wis.2d 601, 266 N.W.2d 279, 287 (1978). See also, Riley v. City of Chester, 612 F.2d 708, 714 (3rd Cir.1979); Farr v. Pitchess, 522 F.2d 464, 467 (9th Cir.1975) cert. denied, 427 U.S. 912, 96 S.Ct. 3200, 49 L.Ed.2d 1203 (1976)......
-
Grand Jury Matter, Gronowicz, In re
...sources of published information when called to testify in proceedings directed against third parties. Compare Riley v. City of Chester, 612 F.2d 708 (3d Cir.1979); United States v. Cuthbertson (Cuthbertson I), 630 F.2d 139 (3d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1126, 101 S.Ct. 945, 67 L.Ed.......
-
Glus v. G. C. Murphy Co.
...449 F.Supp. 1251 (D.Del.1978), rev'd on other grounds, 599 F.2d 1190 (3d Cir. 1979) (securities law).3 See, e. g., Riley v. Chester, 612 F.2d 708 (3d Cir. 1979) (implying a federal common law press privilege from the first amendment).4 We summarized the calculations in the first appeal as f......
-
Privileges
...(5) trial court may require a prima facie showing that the statements were false in order to grant discovery. Riley v. City of Chester , 612 F.2d 708 (3rd Cir. 1979). While a reporter’s privilege not to reveal his sources exists at federal common law, there are countervailing interests that......
-
Media Subpoenas: Impact, Perception, and Legal Protection in the Changing World of American Journalism
...633 F.2d 583, 595-99 (1st Cir. 1980); Miller v. Transamerican Press, Inc., 621 F.2d 721, 725 (5th Cir. 1980); Riley v. City of Chester, 612 F.2d 708, 715 (3d Cir. 1979); Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 563 F.2d 433, 438 (10th Cir. 1977); Farr v. Pitchess, 522 F.2d 464, 467-68 (9th Cir. 1975);......
-
Privileges
...(5) trial court may require a prima facie showing that the statements were false in order to grant discovery. Riley v. City of Chester , 612 F.2d 708 (3rd Cir. 1979). While a reporter’s privilege not to reveal his sources exists at federal common law, there are countervailing interests that......
-
THE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE SUPREME COURT'S EMERGENCY STAYS.
...F.2d 77, 79 (6th Cir. 1990) (quoting Aronson v. May, 85 S. Ct. 3, 5 (1964) (Douglas, J., opinion in chambers)); Riley v. City of Chester, 612 F.2d 708, 716 (3d Cir. 1979) (citing New York Times Co. v. Jascalevich, 439 U.S. 1331, 1335 (1978) (Marshall, J., opinion in chambers)); In re Air Cr......