2 reporters facing jail after appeal is refused

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear an appeal from two reporters who say they should not be forced to reveal their confidential sources to a prosecutor investigating whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked a covert CIA operative's name.

The high court's order leaves New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper facing jail time if they continue to refuse to answer questions before a grand jury.

Both have declined for more than a year to identify confidential sources they spoke with in the summer of 2003 about government efforts to discredit a high-profile critic of President Bush's argument for going to war with Iraq: former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the husband of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The reporters could face up to 18 months in jail.

Miller and Cooper argued that they could not do their jobs if they broke their promise of anonymity to sources who provided a look inside an increasingly secretive government. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argued he could not investigate crimes if reporters had a special right to hide information that other citizens did not.

With appeals almost exhausted, the reporters will ask a federal trial judge to reconsider his decision last year to find them in civil contempt and order them jailed. But many legal experts call it unlikely U.S. District Court Chief Judge Thomas Hogan will change his mind.

"It is shocking that for doing some routine newsgathering on an important public issue, keeping her word to her sources, and without our even publishing a story about the CIA agent, Judy finds herself facing a prison sentence," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co., said in a statement.

Cooper wrote one article raising questions about government officials trying to discredit Wilson behind the scenes. Miller did some reporting but never wrote a story.

Police backed in lawsuit over restraining order

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three daughters.

Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband, the court said in a 7-2 opinion.

City governments had feared that if the court ruled the other way, it would unleash a potentially devastating flood of cases that could bankrupt them.

Gonzales' estranged husband took the three girls from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order. Hours later, Simon Gonzales died in a gun fight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the girls, ages 10, 9 and 7, were in his truck.

Jessica Gonzales argued that she was entitled to sue under the 14th Amendment and under Colorado law that says officers shall use every reasonable means to enforce a restraining order. She contended that her restraining order should be considered property under the 14th Amendment and that it was taken from her without due process when police failed to enforce it.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said, "The creation of a personal entitlement to something as vague and novel as enforcement of restraining orders cannot 'simply go without saying.' We conclude that Colorado has not created such an entitlement."

In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the woman's "description of the police behavior in this case and the department's callous policy of failing to respond properly to reports of restraining order violations clearly alleges a due process violation."

Brian Reichel, Jessica Gonzales' attorney, said: "The restraining orders are not worth anything unless police officers are willing to enforce them. They are just paper."