Word: sirica
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...same section, you state that the Times "changed its mind and decided to obey [Judge] Sirica's order" in turning over to the court its tapes in the Watergate affair after being released from its pledge of confidentiality...
After six months of explosive rumors, the Watergate bugging trial got under way at last. But hardly had the jury been chosen last week in a Washington courtroom when one of the seven defendants pleaded guilty to the charges against him. By week's end, as Judge John Sirica moved the trial temporarily to a closed courtroom and barred spectators, there were reports that four of the other defendants planned to do the same. Pleading guilty would not, of course, make the defendants invulnerable to severe punishment; the maximum sentence for their offenses ranges between 24 and 34 years...
...lately the courts have been seeing things differently. In the past year three newsmen* have come out second best in arguments with the courts. Last week the courts won another round in the clash between the press and the law. U.S. District Court Judge John Sirica ordered John Lawrence, Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, to hand over tapes of his newspaper's interview with the chief prosecution witness in the Watergate bugging case. When Lawrence refused, Sirica ordered him jailed...
...Absolutes. Lawyers for the Times argued that the newspaper's First Amendment rights should take precedence over what was, after all, a "fishing expedition" by the defense. They also insisted that Sirica's order could set a dangerous precedent. Allowing lawyers to demand information that reporters had been given in confidence, they warned, would cause news sources to dry up and cut the flow of information to the public. "I think you're getting alarmed about something that probably won't happen," Sirica told the Times. "Every judge doesn't have to agree with...
...Supreme Court, which ruled last June that newsmen have no absolute privilege to keep their sources secret, has also pointed out that the courts have no absolute right to demand that reporters respond to every whim of prosecution or defense. The Times changed its mind and decided to obey Sirica's order. After Baldwin agreed to release the paper from its agreement of confidentiality, the Times turned the tapes over to the court...