Schwarzenegger vetoes prison access bill (with a twist)
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has once again vetoed an SPJ-sponsored
bill, SB 1521, to overturn restrictions on media access to prisoners, despite
the overwhelming numbers by which the bill was approved in the Legislature (in
one house there was only a single vote in opposition) -- but this time the
governor's veto message provided a twist.
The veto message read:
I am returning Senate Bill 1521 without my
signature.
Last year I vetoed a similar measure because
it would have allowed the media to
glamorize murderers and thereby once again traumatize crime
victims and their families. I am vetoing this bill for the same reason. I
believe California
must provide greater access to our prisons through the media, especially now as
we address problems with overcrowding, medical care and high recidivism rates.
There are
portions of this bill that would facilitate greater media access and let the
sun shine in; however I do not believe violent criminals should be able to
traumatize their victims a second time by having unfettered access to the media.
Therefore, I have directed the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation to immediately issue new regulations to implement the provisions
of this bill to allow media access, but limit media access to
specific violent criminals in order to protect crime victims and their
families.
Peter Sussman, who's been the point person for SPJ in
sponsoring versions of this bill in Sacramento since the prison interview
restrictions were put in place more than 10 years ago, does not believe the
governor's suggested new regulations would easily pass constitutional muster.
Acknowledging that he's a layman, not a lawyer, Sussman says:
"If the
reason for the restrictions on interviews is to control what the press writes
about certain kinds of convicts -- or the way the public responds to reports in
the news media -- then I think the regulations will be much more vulnerable to
legal challenge than the same restrictions on ALL inmates, based on asserted
security grounds, however dubious those security claims may be. The regulations
we've been challenging were ultimately based (in theory) on security, the theory
being that those prisoners with access to the press gained new stature and undue
influence in the eyes of their fellow convicts (becoming so-called "big wheels"
in the prisons) and therefore represented a security threat. That farfetched
theory was endorsed by the Supreme Court when it voted to allow such
restrictions during the 1970s.
"So I guess that now interviewees are not
'big wheels,' and interviews don't pose a security threat within the institution
after all. Now, apparently, the reason to restrict interviews is to control what
the press writes and what the
public is allowed to read, hear or see. I
would think it would be hard to validate that rationale on constitutional
grounds, if the First Amendment has any meaning anymore.
"And what if
some of those with violent crimes are actually innocent? No interviews would be
allowed because the governor doesn't want to traumatize those who were hurt by
crimes the wrongly accused convict didn't commit. As we're all aware, in recent
years an increasing number of convicts have been shown to be wrongfully
convicted, and that's certainly one of the reasons why a journalist might want
to interview them -- and ought to be allowed to do so. Such interviews have
played a role in exoneration when the normal court appeals have been exhausted."