UPDATE: OREGON
UPDATE: OREGON02/24/97 |
Prosecutors decided in early February not to bring charges against Eugene Register-Guard reporter Jeff Wright and photography intern Anthony Robert La Penna, who were arrested by U.S. Forest Service personnel last August while covering a protest in the Willamette National Forest near Eugene, Ore.
Lane County District Attorney Doug Harcleroad told the Associated Press that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, notified him that the agency does not want the case prosecuted. The Register-Guard has a suit pending against the Forest Service charging that the Forest Service employees who arrested Wright and La Penna and confiscated their notes and cameras violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights. The civil case is scheduled to be heard in federal District Court in Eugene in early March.