California court requires background checks of journalists
By The Associated Press
02.09.01
FRESNO, Calif. — In a move that critics say violates press freedoms, court
officials are requiring journalists to undergo a criminal background check if
they want to cover the state trial of convicted Yosemite National Park
murderer Cary Stayner.
Of the 50 journalists who have applied to cover the upcoming trial, at least
16 have already submitted their fingerprints and been cleared, court officers
said, and another 13 who were credentialed at Stayner's federal trial have
been exempted.
The unusual requirement rankled Terry Francke, general counsel for the
watchdog California First Amendment Coalition, who says the fingerprinting
appears to violate constitutionally guaranteed press freedoms.
"A background check may become relevant when the issuing agency has to
provide security for people who are frequent targets," Francke said. But, he
added, press passes "are certainly not issued to get you into a public trial,
or public school board meeting. That's a different issue entirely. I'm
surprised that others aren't balking at it."
Officials at the tiny courthouse in Mariposa County, where preliminary
hearings are scheduled to start next month, said they wanted to make sure
reporters have a clean record because they are worried about security.
The Associated Press reporter assigned to the case did not have federal court
credentials and is the only reporter so far to object to the background
check, Superior Court Executive Officer Michael Berest said.
Berest said he thought he was following the procedure used to issue press
credentials in the federal case.
But Carol Davis, a federal courts official, said reporters only had to submit
two photos and show their credentials.
"This is absurd," said Charlie Waters, executive editor of the Fresno Bee.
Waters added that he would have fought the measure had he known of it.
He says one Fresno Bee reporter has already received credentials but that he
plans to send others who will not submit to the background checks.
Mariposa County is a community of 16,000 residents scattered among foothills
of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where Yosemite is located.
Stayner has pleaded not guilty to the February 1999 killings of three
tourists at a rustic motel where he worked. He has already been convicted in
the murder and beheading of naturalist Joie Armstrong in July 1999 and is
serving a life sentence without parole.
He faces the death penalty if convicted in the deaths of Carole Sund, 42,
Silvina Pelosso of Argentina, 16, and Sund's daughter, Juli, 15, whose bodies
were found a month after they disappeared.
