FOI, victims' advocates debate prison interview ban

By The Associated Press

09.30.02

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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A death-row inmate's challenge of a policy limiting media interviews has divided those who say inmates are using reporters for their own ends — and those who say wardens are doing the same.

David Paul Hammer, a death-row inmate at the federal prison in Terre Haute, has filed a lawsuit alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated by rules imposed after Timothy McVeigh's May 2001 interview with "60 Minutes."

"The public cannot be allowed to see or hear men speak out about the system, their innocence, and their legal case," Hammer wrote in an online journal quoted yesterday by The Indianapolis Star.

Hammer, 43, said regulations that ban face-to-face interviews with federal death-row inmates and prohibit the broadcast of any audio or videotaped interviews go too far.

But giving death-row inmates press serves no useful purpose, said Connie Sutton of Boggstown, who became a victim's advocate after her daughter, Kelly Eckart, was slain in 1997.

"They're all going to say the same thing," Sutton said. "If you're going to be put to death ... you grab at all the straws you can."

Others, however, argue that keeping inmates silent keeps the public from knowing what really goes on in prison.

"The public gets a whitewashed picture of the corrections system where everything is squeaky clean and plays out perfectly. We don't know the extent of violence, we don't know the extent of corruption," said Charles N. Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri.

Courts frequently rule that reporters have no essential right to visit prisons, the Star reported. In Hammer's case, a U.S. District Court judge initially dismissed the lawsuit as without merit, but a federal appeals court reversed that decision.

Wardens at each federal prison are allowed to develop their own rules concerning media access, said Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley.

Harley Lappin, former warden at Terre Haute, has said he imposed the restrictions surrounding the McVeigh interview based on safety and security concerns.

An Indiana civil rights attorney disputed that.

"The initial reaction was not safety, but muzzling Timothy McVeigh," said Steve Key of the Hoosier State Press Association. "What the public loses is the ability to have much accountability into how prisons operate.

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Federal prison bans in-person interviews with death-row inmates
Inmate sues, charging First Amendment violations in new policy, which also restricts phone interviews, bars publication of certain comments.  04.26.01