Subpoena for UCSB Student Newspaper Photos Dropped
Public Defender Sought Unpublished Photos From Anti-War Protest
After being subpoenaed twice in the space of one month, Daily Nexus editor in chief Nick D¼rnhfer received good news on Wednesday night: the second subpoena had been dropped. D¼rnhfer, who sought legal assistance from the Arlington, Virginia-based Student Press Law Center, found pro bono representation with Robyn Aronson, of the national law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, who successfully convinced Santa Barbara County Public Defender Kathy Schwinghammer to relent in her effort to obtain photos from the February 12 anti-war protest at UCSB. Schwinghammer – who is defending Michael Howard Miller, one of the people arrested during the protest – had said that photos the Nexus took during the protest could help prove her client’s innocence. Aronson reportedly argued that the photos were protected by reporter privilege and that the subpoena was served too late in the case.
The Nexus‘s previous subpoena stemmed from an unrelated matter. Public defender Deedrea Edgar sought notes taken by Nexus staff in preparation for its regular police blotter column, which runs regularly in the student paper runs and which relates Isla Vista Foot Patrol accounts of arrests made in the Isla Vista community. Assistant county editor Travis Miller and be-umlauted EIC D¼rnhfer were subpoenaed in this matter.
