From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

Brooke Gladstone is on vacation. I'm Mike Peska.

Four reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer were found in contempt of court last week for violating an order from Superior Court Judge Linda G. Baxter not to talk to or identify jurors in the sensational murder trial of Rabbi Fred J. Newlander.

Judge Baxter presided over the case in which the rabbi was accused of arranging his wife's killing.

The case ended in a mistrial in November after the jury deadlocked.

The four reporters were investigating whether the jury four woman actually lived in

Pennsylvania rather than New Jersey's Camden County, and whether that would have meant a mistrial,

had the jury agreed on a verdict. In April, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Baxter

had the authority to bar reporters from contacting jurors before the verdict, but not afterward. But by the time the

ruling was passed, the article had already been published. So were the reporters still in the wrong?

According to the state of New Jersey, the order was in effect at the time it was violated by the

reporters, so the answer is still a resounding yes. And the four were fined $1,000 each, and three of them

were sentenced to community service. Bruce Rosen specializes in media law for the New Jersey

firm McCusker and Selmy Rosen Carvelli Walsh. Bruce, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. If a judge

were handling a case and picked up the phone book and randomly called

somebody out of the white pages and said, this is judge so-and-so, in the case of the state of New Jersey

against fill in the blank, you are not permitted to speak to the jurors in this case. Is that

enforceable? Just to a private citizen? Not once a lawyer who was worth

assault gets a hold of it. No, not at all. So by extension, if it's unenforceable to a private

citizen, how in the world could it be enforceable to a reporter who, in addition to being a

private citizen, has explicit First Amendment rights.

Because the judge needs to balance the rights of the First Amendment against the right to a fair trial.

...