Arkansas Supreme Court Sides With Newspaper in Lawsuit

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A legal principle covering journalists who base their reports on police records protects a newspaper sued over stories it published about an alleged rape, the Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled.

In an unanimous decision, the court found that the “fair report privilege” allowed The Courier newspaper of Russellville to print the articles involving Ryan Whiteside. The privilege shields publishers of an accurate story about an official action or court proceeding. Such records comprise the backbone of reports by news organizations.

In Whiteside’s case, the newspaper inadvertently obtained the full police report, complete with witness statements, through its routine access to the Russellville police’s computer system. Whiteside’s lawyers argued the newspaper knew it wasn’t supposed to have the information, but ran the story anyway because it involved the man charged at the time in the killing of an Arkansas beauty queen.

In the court’s opinion, Associate Justice Paul E. Danielson dismissed the claim, noting the U.S. Supreme Court has held against “timidity and self-censorship” by the press.

“The record is devoid of any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the newspaper in obtaining the information,” Danielson wrote. “It was not incumbent upon the newspaper to determine what information could or could not be published after its release by the police.”

H. Clay Moore, a Houston lawyer representing Whiteside, said he had not yet seen the opinion and withheld comment. Whiteside did not return a message left at his parents’ home in Russellville.

In 2005, Whiteside, Kevin Jones and Jones’ mother found the naked body of Nona Dirksmeyer, a beauty queen attending college in Russellville. Jones, Dirksmeyer’s ex-boyfriend, was later charged with capital murder in the 19-year-old’s death.

A year later, a woman filed a rape complaint with Russellville police, claiming men at a party in Whiteside’s home took advantage of her. The woman’s cousin, using information from another partygoer, told police she had heard that men gave the alleged victim a half-tablet of Ecstasy before taking her into a bedroom. The cousin said the partygoer had told her she saw Whiteside and another man having sexual contact with the woman, with Jones watching at one point. Jones was free on $250,000 bond at the time.

State troopers who were asked to help investigate found the partygoer who had talked to the cousin. An investigative report shows that the partygoer told troopers it appeared the alleged victim was a willing participant with one of the men and that Whiteside wasn’t involved.

Later, the alleged victim sent text messages to one of the men joking about the encounter and said she wanted “to be cool about it,” the troopers’ report said. Because of that, Prosecutor David Gibbons decided not to pursue charges, noting there was “no evidence at all that Ryan Whiteside or Kevin Jones … had any sexual contact” with the woman.

But by that point, the story had appeared on the front page of The Courier. Whiteside sued the newspaper, reporter Janie Ginocchio and editor Scott Perkins. A Pope County judge dismissed the suit and Whiteside appealed directly to the state Supreme Court.

Both Ginocchio and Perkins later left The Courier for positions at The Paragould Daily Press, which like The Courier is owned by Kentucky-based Paxton Media Group.

Perkins declined to immediately comment.