A Jefferson Circuit Court judge quashed a subpoena of a Courier-Journal reporter yesterday, saying that the First Amendment protects reporters from having to testify about how they gather information for stories.
Judge Mary Shaw issued that decision during a hearing where defense lawyers for Gail Coontz sought to have reporter Jason Riley explain how he got a court file that the lawyers say was sealed.
Coontz is charged with murder in the shooting deaths of her two children, 14-year-old Greg and 10-year-old Nikki.
The children were found in their bedrooms at their Okolona home March 27.
Coontz, who could face the death penalty, was arrested after she showed up at the University of Louisville's counseling center with a gun earlier that day.
On July 9, the Courier-Journal published an article that detailed documents that were filed as part of the discovery in Coontz's criminal trial.
Those documents included information about Coontz's past mental health treatment.
The file also detailed a call Coontz made in January to a crisis hot line in which she threatened to kill herself and her children.
That call led to an investigation by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that ended with the cabinet finding Coontz was not a risk to her
children.
If there was ever a time when the people of Kentucky need more state money for mental health treatment, it is now. Instead, most mental health service providers are facing huge cutbacks and budget shortfalls. Let Governor Beshear know that Kentucky's mental health system is in crisis, and we cannot afford to lose more programs.
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