Radio & Television News Ass'n of Southern California v. United States District Court for the Central District of California

The Radio and Television News Association, an organization representing *1444 broadcast journalists, filed this petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to compel the district court to vacate its amended restraining order. That amended order restrains trial counsel for a criminal defendant from making extrajudicial statements to members of the news media. We hold that restraints on the statements of trial participants, although indirectly denying the media access to those participants, do not infringe freedom of the press under the first amendment. Accordingly, we deny the petition.

I

BACKGROUND

In Levine v. U.S. District Court, 764 F.2d 590 (9th Cir.1985), we considered a petition brought by Richard A. Miller and his attorneys, Stanley I. Greenberg and Joel Levine, seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the district court to dissolve a restraining order that prohibited the attorneys involved in Miller’s trial from communicating with the media regarding the merits of the case. Miller, a former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was then awaiting trial on espionage charges in the district court. The circumstances of that case and the conduct of counsel which…

concurring:

I agree with the majority that the Radio and Television News Association (RTNA) has not alleged a cognizable first amendment violation. I also agree that the RTNA does not have standing to allege a freedom of speech interest on behalf of defendant’s trial counsel. I write separately to note that I would not have permitted the district court gag order in the first place. (See Levine v. United States District Court, 764 F.2d 590, 603 (Nelson, J., concurring in part, and dissenting in part).

In addition, I question whether the district court, by its wholesale adoption of the six categories of prohibited subjects, complied entirely with this court’s order to “fashion an order specifying the proscribed types of statements” (emphasis added) based on a determination of which types of extrajudicial statements threatened the empaneling of an impartial jury. I stress that I would not require exquisitely detailed findings to justify every aspect of a restraining order. However, in this constitutionally sensitive area of prior restraints and the first amendment, I would expect the district court to set forth a brief rationale for each of the categories of proscribed statements…