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YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION
Regardless of whether news occurs on public or private property, if you ignore police orders regarding access you risk arrest and prosecution. Case law makes clear that police can limit media access when they believe such restrictions are needed for public safety or to prevent interference with an investigation, and that the First Amendment does not provide immunity from criminal sanctions for disobeying police orders. For example, several reporters were arrested in Oklahoma in 1979 for following anti-nuclear power demonstrators onto a privately owned power plant site. The land's owner, the Public Service Co. of Oklahoma, had repeatedly denied access to the plant to the public and the media. Because the power company's activities were heavily regulated by the state and federal government, the court treated the plant's management as a governmental entity. Nonetheless, the judge fined the reporters for criminal trespass. Six reporters appealed their convictions, arguing that the media have an "institutional role in obtaining and disseminating information to the public" about such controversial issues as nuclear energy. Therefore, they argued, prosecution for trespassing violated the First Amendment. But the state Criminal Court of Appeals ruled that the First Amendment does not guarantee access to property "simply because it is owned or controlled by the government," and the court affirmed the convictions. Furthermore, it said that the First Amendment does not protect reporters from arrest and prosecution if they have broken the law while gathering the news. (Stahl v. Oklahoma) However, courts often acknowledge after the fact that a reporter or photographer should have been granted access to a particular scene. For example, in December 1992 a county judge in Pittsburgh dismissed charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice against Charles Palla Jr., an Associated Press photographer who was arrested for allegedly interfering with the arrest of a homeless man. The judge ruled that the photographer had a legitimate purpose in photographing the arrest. Palla was taking pictures of the arrest when the homeless man ran away. The police chased the man, and Palla followed them. (City of Pittsburgh v. Palla) Palla later sued the police and city for violating his civil rights by arresting him. Nearly three years later, a jury awarded him more than $100,000 in damages, finding that the police had arrested him without probable cause and that the city had condoned the arresting officer's misconduct. (Palla v. Pittsburgh) Similarly, in December 1994 a judge in Bakersfield, Calif., dismissed charges against John Harte, a Bakersfield Californian photographer who was arrested for interfering with police while they searched for a drowned child. The judge ruled that the photographer, who allegedly ignored police orders to leave the area, should not be tried for asserting his right to "be present and to view and photographically record the recovery of the body." Harte said that during the incident he asked why he was being told to leave, to which an officer replied, "Because I said so." The judge's decision was based on California Penal Code provisions that prohibit the media from being excluded from emergency scenes, and that restrict officers from detaining members of the press at emergency scenes. The judge also ruled that a trial would have had a chilling effect on freedom of the press. (California v. Harte) In September 1994, charges were dropped against a New Jersey photographer who was arrested for "obstruction of the administration of the law" for continuing to photograph a grief-stricken father despite a police order to stop. Michael Rafferty, a photographer for the Asbury Park Press, was taking pictures of a man as he witnessed his two young children burn in a car fire. The prosecutor in the case determined that no crime had been committed and that "it was Mr. Rafferty's job, as a member of the press, to capture this scene on film."
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