Legal News

On Friday afternoon, October 29, 1999, Frieda Hudson, the publisher of The Pamlico News, called the NCPA Hotline for help. On the previous Wednesday, The News had published a story unflattering to the Commissioners of Hyde County. Sandy Semans, author of the story and managing editor of The News, was on her way to a…

On October 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Food Lion v. Capital Cities/ABC, et al. By a 2-1 vote the three-judge panel threw out a jury’s award of compensatory and punitive damages against ABC News, ruling that two ABC News producers who conducted a “hidden camera” investigation…

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has summarily and emphatically reversed a Mecklenburg County Superior Court judge’s sweeping “gag order” in an environmental pollution case. In a September 15 opinion written by Judge Edward Greene and joined by Judges Donald L. Smith and Patricia Timmons-Goodson, the appellate court characterized Judge Marvin K. Gray’s order muzzling…

Jay Ashley This month, Amanda and I have turned over the legal column to Jay Ashley of The Alamance News. Jay’s account of a recent episode involving his boss, Tom Boney, says more than we could ever say about standing up for the First Amendment, freedom of the press, the people’s right to know, and…

By his rulings in a high-profile murder case, a Wake County judge has put the North Carolina reporter’s privilege in doubt — and a Raleigh television reporter in jail. He also has presented the NCPA with a challenge and a possible dilemma. Here’s the story, and what it means for you. The Branzburg cases. In…

Michael J. Tadych and Hugh Stevens (Note: Michael J. Tadych is a student at the CaseWestern Reserve School of Law who is a summer intern at Everett, Gaskins, Hancock & Stevens.) Leave it to the U.S. Postal Service to make a bad situation worse. For years, the North Carolina statutes that define which newspapers may…

No wonder they call it a “crime bill.” What the Congress has done to the North Carolina Public Records Law ought to be a felony. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 — yes, the same one that had political tempers flaring and partisan rhetoric flowing through the dog days of August…

When Daniel Andre Green goes on trial in Lumberton next month for the murder of Michael Jordan’s father, there will be no cameras in the courtroom. Presiding judge Gregory Weeks, who allowed cameras during the pre-trial hearings, gave no indication until October that he would not permit camera coverage of the trial as well. Indeed,…