Rural editor jailed over reporter's use of recorder in court

Gavin Stone

"A North Carolina Superior Court judge put a small-town newspaper editor behind bars last month after one of his reporters used an audio recorder for note-taking purposes at a murder trial — a punishment the paper and media rights groups consider excessive," Bryan Anderson reports for The Associated Press. "Judge Stephan Futrell sentenced Gavin Stone, the news editor of the Richmond County Daily Journal, to five days in jail before having the editor hauled off to jail. Stone was released the next day but still faces the possibility of more time in lockup. 

The Superior Court's rules allow electronic media and photography of public hearings, but judges may prohibit them on a case-by-case basis. A different judge sent Stone a letter in January 2020 reprimanding him for taking a photo in a courtroom, so he was aware that cellphones, cameras and other recording devices were not allowed without the judge's permission, Anderson reports. 

Stone only remembered the cellphone ban, so he told reporter Matthew Sasser it would be OK to bring an audio recorder to court. Sasser did so on June 21 and 22. When Futrell found out Sasser had the recorder, he told the reporter to take it out of the courtroom. After Sasser went back to the newsroom, a bailiff told him to come back to court to talk to the judge. Stone went with him. The judge found Sasser and Stone in contempt of court, sentenced Stone to five days in jail, and fined Sasser $500.

"Brian Bloom, the paper’s publisher, acknowledged that his reporter shouldn’t have had the recorder in court because it was not allowed but criticized the judge’s move to imprison an editor for a minor infraction committed by a colleague," Anderson reports. "The newspaper’s appeal is scheduled to be heard July 16. Futrell has removed the original penalties on Stone and Sasser and is allowing an appeals court to decide whether to make the editor and reporter pay as much as $500 each and serve up to 30 days in jail."