Scalia Apologizes for Erasure of Reporters' Tapes of Speech 
Justice Vows to Permit Recordings by Print Journalists  

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A17 

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has issued written apologies
for the destruction of two reporters' audiotapes by a deputy U.S.
marshal in guarding him last week, and has promised to permit
print journalists to record his public speeches in the future,
according to a letter by the justice made public yesterday. 

In an April 9 letter to Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of
the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had
protested the incident, Scalia said he had written to the two
reporters, Antoinette Konz of the Hattiesburg American and Denise
Grones of the Associated Press, "extending my apology and
undertaking to revise my policy so as to permit recording for use
of the print media." 

Scalia called Dalglish's concern "well justified" and said he had
been "as upset as you were" to learn of the deputy marshal's
action, which, he said, "was not taken at my direction." 

His letter was posted on the Internet yesterday by the Reporters
Committee. It was his first known response to the incident, which
occurred April 7.  

Both Scalia and the U.S. Marshals Service have come under fire
from advocates of media freedom, who said the erasure of the
reporters' recordings was contrary to the spirit of the First
Amendment, and possibly to a federal law that prohibits federal
officers from confiscating news material even while investigating
crimes.  

Yesterday, Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Patrick
J. Leahy (Vt.) took the issue a step further, sending a letter to
Leonidas Ralph Mecham, director of the Administrative Office of
the U.S. Courts, denouncing the April 7 incident and asking that
standards be set for media access to the speeches of federal
judges. 

It was unclear yesterday whether Scalia's apology and change in
policy would satisfy his critics. Though he indicated a
willingness to let print reporters record his remarks for the
sake of accurately quoting him, he rejected suggestions that he
permit radio and television reporters to record his remarks for
broadcast. 

"We greatly appreciate Justice Scalia's prompt response to our
letter," Dalglish said in a written statement. "However, we
remain disappointed with his policy regarding electronic media
coverage of his speeches, and hope he will reconsider." 

Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors
Association, sent Scalia an open letter saying that his policy
"discriminates against television and radio journalists, fosters
less accurate reporting and undermines the principle at the very
core of the First Amendment."  

Frank Fisher, the Associated Press's Jackson, Miss., bureau
chief, and Jon Broadbooks, executive editor of the Hattiesburg
American, said their reporters had not received the letters from
Scalia. 

Fisher and Broadbooks both used the word "gratified" to sum up
their feelings about Scalia's apologies, but said the issue of
the deputy U.S. marshal's conduct remained unresolved. Both news
organizations have protested to federal authorities. 

"There is still the lingering question of why the marshal seized
the recordings," Broadbooks said. "We feel it was illegal." 

The 1980 Privacy Protection Act says government agents
investigating a crime may not "search for or seize any work
product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to
have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book,
broadcast or other similar form of public communication." 

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service, Nikki Credic, said
the service had no comment on Scalia's letter. As for possible
corrective action by the service related to the incident, she
said that "they are still looking into the matter." 

Scalia was delivering an address about the Constitution at
Presbyterian Christian High School on April 7 when Grones and
Konz were confronted by Deputy U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube and
ordered to turn over their recordings, which Rube then erased. 

Rube cited Scalia's policy of not permitting audiotaping or
videotaping of his public appearances. But the policy had not
been announced to the reporters. 

(C) 2004 The Washington Post Company