Reporters are now more hesitant to cover crime stories in certain situations after the enactment of a Louisiana law allowing police officers to bar the public from getting within 25 feet of them, attorneys for news organizations argued in federal court last week.
The arguments for and against Act 259, which took effect Aug. 1, were made before federal Judge John deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. The law allows officers engaged in their official duties to order people not to approach within 25 feet of them. Violators can be fined up to $500 or put in jail for up to 60 days, according to the Legislature’s summary of the measure.
“We appreciated the opportunity to be heard by the court because we do think this is a law that affects the ability of all of our clients’ journalists to do their jobs, and we hope that the court will issue a preliminary injunction,” Grayson Clary, staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, told the Louisiana Record.
Clary represents six news organizations that filed a lawsuit against the new law, arguing that it violates journalists’ First Amendment right to get close enough to cover news events in progress in public places.
Prior to the law’s enactment, reporters covering a news story could comply with an officer’s request to move away as a favor, but they could also stand their ground if that was required to document what was happening, according to Clary.
“Now that the statute is in effect, those interactions come with the prospect of spending a night in jail,” he said, noting that reporters may now be losing out on covering public-interest stories because they don’t want to risk criminal penalties.
In a similar case in Indiana, a coalition of news organizations successfully argued recently that a similar law was unconstitutionally vague, according to Clary.
“Other states are closely watching what’s happened in these proceedings and if courts are going to give the green light to these buffer-zone laws,” he said.
State Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office is defending the law, said Act 259 is needed to ensure that the people who protect Louisianan residents are able to do their jobs without interference.
“The 25-foot buffer zone law for working police is a reasonable time, place and manner restriction that ensures law enforcement can do their jobs without threat or obstruction by others,” Murrill said in a prepared statement. “We were proud to present oral arguments (Dec. 11) in defense of Act 259, which protects those who protect us.”
She called the measure “plainly constitutional” and said she looked forward to deGravelles’ decision on whether Act 259 passes legal muster.
The law provides an affirmative defense for those punished for approaching officers who order them away, according to the Legislature’s digest of Act 259. This can happen “if the defendant can establish that the lawful order or command was neither received nor understood by the defendant nor capable of being received or understood under the conditions and circumstances that existed at the time of the issuance of the order,” the digest states.
The news organizations’ lawsuit argues that the law gives police excessive authority to bar reporters from covering events such as parades, rallies, arrests or accident scenes – without any requirement to provide a reason for keeping reporters at bay.