SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Legal debate is swirling around the rights of two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who could go to jail for revealing names in a 2003 steroid investigation.
Lawyers for the Hearst Corp., which owns the Chronicle, are working on the February appeal hearing for Lance Williams, 56, and Mark Fainaru-Wada, 41, who could go to jail for 18 years for refusing to reveal their sources in the case.
It began as mostly a local San Francisco story in 2003 involving the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative -- BALCO -- steroid scandal. However, the two published sealed grand jury testimony implicating such heavyweight baseball stars as Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.
That led to congressional hearings and a clampdown on drug testing by Major League Baseball.
Williams and Fainaru-Wada are free pending the Feb. 12 appeal and Hearst lawyer Eve Burton said the government's case is a waste of its time.
"I want people to know that if the government wins this case, all they're going to accomplish is putting two reporters in jail," Burton told the Chronicle. "They are not going to get this information from us."
