Celebrity Prisoner

Four newsmen have been jailed in the past year either for refusing to disclose sources of information or withholding unpublished material from curious grand juries. With the First Amendment no longer a shield against such proceedings, other reporters may also be prosecuted. Reporter William Farr ran into trouble while covering the Charles Manson murder trial for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. He published a story based on a witness's confidential statement to the district attorney's office, then refused to comply with Judge Charles Older's demand that he name his source. Upon losing a long legal fight, Farr was jailed in November. Last week, after 46 days, he was freed by an order from U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, pending the outcome of a new appeal. Just before his release, TIME Correspondent Timothy Tyler visited Farr to plumb his mood and discover the kind of life he led in the Los Angeles county jail.

Farr cannot get over the ironies of his situation. Had he been cited for criminal contempt, the maximum sentence would have been 65 days in jail and a fine of $6,500. But a jail stay for civil contempt theoretically can be indefinite--"a virtual life sentence," as he put it. Even as he anticipated the Douglas order, Farr knew that he could be jailed once more if his current appeal fails. He can only free himself of the contempt citation if he discloses his source or if Older relents. For the present, both remain adamant.

If he does have to go back, Farr could do much worse than the L.A. jail, where he enjoyed a kind of celebrity status. Because the law requires the separation of civil and criminal offenders, Farr was put into a kind of isolation in the jail's hospital, where, unlike other prisoners, he was given a private room 8 ft. by 12 ft. It had no bars, just a small window in the door. Farr ate there alone, away from the common thieves and muggers. ("The food is good. Starchy, but plentiful and pretty good.") He could not take exercise with fellow inmates, so he established a private regimen: 30 push-ups and 60 sit-ups three times a day.

Farr wore the same light blue denim shirt and dark denim pants as the 3,700 other inmates, but there the similarity ended. One of the senior jail officials came by frequently to chat. "He was a reader of Intellectual Digest," Farr said. "We would discuss how to run the jail. He's very serious about trying to treat his prisoners differently, because he believes in the innocent-until-proven-guilty thing."

In fact, Farr rarely lacked company, despite the nominal quota on visitors of six a week. There is no limit on journalistic interviews or conferences with lawyers, and since most of Farr's friends are newsmen or attorneys, he was frequently able to leave his small room and go to the visitors' area. Friends were even able to bring him mail that had been delivered to his home, a convenience denied most prisoners. An arrangement with the public library supplied him with as many books as he wanted, and again unlike other inmates, he was allowed to receive an unlimited number of magazines and newspapers.

"I have no bitterness against Older," Farr insists. Nonetheless, his life was disrupted, and may be again soon. Now 38 and divorced, Farr had been considering remarriage to his longtime girl friend, but that prospect has been relegated to limbo because of the uncertainty about his future. Despite the amenities of the jail, there was an obvious chafing. "The judge says, 'He's not even in jail, he's in the hospital,' " says Farr. "You could put this cell in the Waldorf-Astoria and it would still be jail."

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