Rocky Mountain News: State

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URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3057768,00.html

Scripps will join appeal in Bryant case

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
July 23, 2004

Scripps Newspapers Inc., owner of the Rocky Mountain News, is one of 12 organizations that will add their support to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking the reversal of an order not to publish a transcript in the Kobe Bryant case that was accidentally provided to seven media groups last month.

The friend-of-the-court brief will be filed today, two days after the seven media organizations that received the errant document had petitioned Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer for an emergency consideration of their challenge to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.

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On Monday, the state Supreme Court sided with Chief District Judge Terry Ruckriegle, who had ordered that although there was nothing illegal about the way the seven media organizations had obtained the 206-page "rape shield" hearing transcript, the privacy rights of the alleged victim in the Bryant case trumped the First Amendment rights of the media to publish the document's contents.

At issue is the transcript of a hearing Ruckriegle conducted behind closed doors June 21-22 to help him decide what parts, if any, of the 20-year-old Eagle woman's sexual history would be admissible at trial.

On June 24, court reporter Michelle Goodbee intended to send a copy of the transcript to Ruckriegle. However, she inadvertently sent it to seven media groups whose addresses had been stored in her computer.

That same afternoon, Ruckriegle issued an order forbidding the recipients from publishing any contents of the document and ordered them to destroy their copies.

On Monday, the state Supreme Court affirmed most of Ruckriegle's order, but struck the portion of his ruling that demanded the misdirected copies be destroyed.

That order also encouraged Ruckriegle to issue as soon as possible his ruling about what sexual history testimony will be allowed at Bryant's trial, which is set to begin Aug. 27.

If Ruckriegle decides that any portion of the testimony included in the June 21-22 transcript is admissible at trial, that information may also be published by the media.