News in Brief

Harrisburg – A policy that permits Pennsylvania court reporters to set their own prices for court transcripts has resulted in insurance companies negotiating cut-rate deals with some stenographers, while citizens who want copies of the same documents have to pay rates that approach $3 a page.

According to the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the problem is worst in Philadelphia.

Court stenographers in the city have said they charge as much $2.25 per page for transcript copies. But one legislative critic said some stenographers give special rates – 50 cents to 75 cents per page less – to insurance companies that are frequently involved in court cases and request transcripts more often.

‘Arguably, because of the reduced rates, some of the costs are shifted from the insurance company to other parties in the case,’ said Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery).

Greenleaf said the issue is a basic question of fairness.

‘We must give people the same access to court documents that we give corporations,’ said Greenleaf, who is sponsoring a bill that would require equal prices for all parties in a lawsuit. ‘Setting low prices for corporations and high prices for others is obviously unfair. Especially when the transcripts can cost more than $1,000.’

Greenleaf’s bill currently sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is the chairman.

Pa. Case to Decide Federal Wiretapping Law

Washington, D.C. – The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether people can be sued for disclosing the contents of telephone calls illegally intercepted and recorded by someone else.

Setting the stage for a free-speech ruling with particular significance for news organizations, the court said it will use a Pennsylvania case to judge the validity of federal and state wiretapping laws that impose such liability.

Federal appeals courts are split on the issue.

In the case acted on, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal and Pennsylvania laws are unconstitutional. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruling in a similar case, upheld the federal law.

Clinton administration lawyers urged reversal of the 3rd Circuit court’s ruling, which they said incorrectly ‘calls into question the constitutionality of provisions enacted by a majority of the states’ as well as the federal law.

The dispute comes from Wyoming, a community between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.

Gloria Bartnicki, was the chief negotiator for a teacher’s union during protracted contract talks with the Wyoming Valley West School District in the early 1990s. In a May 1993 telephone conversation with Anthony Kane Jr., a Wyoming Valley West High School teacher and the union’s president, Bartnicki complained about the school board’s reluctance to approve a proposal for a 3 percent pay raise.

‘If they’re not going to move for 3 percent, we’re gonna have to go to their homes … to blow off their front porches, we’ll have to do some work on some of those guys.’ During the conversation, Kane was speaking on his home telephone and Bartnicki on a cellular phone from her car.

The conversation was intercepted and recorded onto a cassette tape by someone whose identity is unknown, and who placed it in the mailbox of Jack Yocum, who led a group opposed to the teacher union’s wage proposals.

Yocum gave a copy of the tape to Frederick Vopper, a radio talk show host, who played the conversation in its entirety on his show in September 1993. The show was aired by stations WILK and WGBI.

Bartnicki and Kane sued Yocum, Vopper and the radio stations under both the state and federal laws for having used and disclosed the tape of their intercepted phone conversation.

The 3rd Circuit threw out the case against them last December, ruling that the Constitution’s First Amendment shields them from any liability. The amendment protects freedom of speech.

The entire appeals court, voting 6-5, refused to review the panel’s decision.

Bartnicki and Kane joined in filing one Supreme Court appeal, and the Clinton administration filed another.

Justice Department lawyers said the federal law, known as Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, protects ‘privacy … and … public confidence’ in wire, oral and electronic communications.

The only six states that do not have such laws, according to the appeals court in the District of Columbia, are Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Vermont and Washington.

The cases are Bartnicki v. Vopper, 99-1687, and U.S. v. Vopper, 99-1728.

‘Arlen Specter ’96′ Campaign Subject of FEC Suit