Court requires security check sfor reporters at Stayner trial

The measure is unusual in legal journalism and somehow managed to slip past the gaze of editors, news directors and First Amendment experts who usually make efforts to protect press freedom.

"This is the first thing I've heard about it," said Charlie Waters, executive editor of the Fresno Bee. "This is absurd."

Waters said Thursday he would have fought the measure if it had been brought to his attention. He wasn't immediately sure if his reporters had submitted to the criminal background check.

Mariposa Superior Court Executive Officer Michael Berest said he thought he was following the procedure used to issue press credentials in the federal case against Stayner.

But Carol Davis, a federal court official in Sacramento who was consulted by Mariposa officials, said reporters only had to submit two photos and show their credentials to get a special pass for the case heard in Fresno federal court.

"This is way off from what they said when I spoke with them. Whoa," said Davis, an administrative analyst for the Eastern District of California.

Berest said anyone with photo identification from the federal case did not have to undergo the background check. But most of the roughly 70 reporters requesting credentials needed the fingerprint analysis and only one organization, The Associated Press, had objected, he said.

So far, the checks have not unearthed any criminal activity, said Lt. Brian Muller, spokesman for the sheriff. If a record of a crime is found, then law enforcement officials will discuss whether the reporter can cover the hearing, Muller said.

Terry Francke, general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition, said the fingerprinting appears to violate constitutionally guaranteed press freedoms.

"A background check may become relevant when the issuing agency has to provide security for people who are frequent targets," Francke said. "(Press passes) are certainly not issued to get you into a public trial, or public school board meeting. That's a different issue entirely. I'm surprised that others aren't balking at it."

The U.S. Supreme Court has held in numerous cases that the press and the public have a right to attend criminal court proceedings, Francke said.

The Mariposa rule only applies to the media. A few entry passes will be issued to the public for hearings and they won't have to submit to a background check, Berest said. Everyone in the court will have to pass through a security check for weapons.

Criminal background checks were required for reporters covering the Denver trial of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, but similar checks were not required in the high-profile case of convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski in Sacramento, Davis said.

"This isn't the McVeigh case, this isn't a terrorist who blew up a federal building," said Marcia A. Morrissey, Stayner's defense lawyer. She said the measure was very strange.

To understand what all the fuss is about, one need only take a look at Mariposa, a county of about 16,000 residents scattered among foothills that roll up to the rugged Sierra Nevada where Yosemite is located.

The area has seen its share of crime, but nothing has brought the notoriety -- or a stampede of media -- like the killer who stalked Yosemite National Park two years ago.

Carole Sund, her daughter, Juli, and their friend, Silvina Pelosso, disappeared while staying on the outskirts of the park at the Cedar Lodge, where Stayner worked as a handyman. Their bodies were found a month later.

Stayner, who reportedly confessed to the killings, is already serving a federal life sentence for murdering and beheading Yosemite naturalist Joie Armstrong in July 1999. That case was heard in federal court because Armstrong was killed in a national park.<