THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON AND LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
A small army of writers, photographers and computer experts want to freeze-frame death-row inmate Joseph O'Dell today for a world-wide project on the diversity of life in cyberspace. But the state Corrections Department won't let them.
The project, ``24 Hours in Cyberspace,'' is an effort to document at least a portion of the on-line world for posterity and show how computers are changing people's lives. O'Dell, the only prison inmate featured, is one of a growing number of condemned men who have used the Internet to publicize claims of innocence.
The problem is that the ``Cyberspace'' organizers ran head-on into Corrections Director Ron Angelone's increasingly stringent policy of denying face-to-face access to inmates by the media.
Just as the national media has started paying attention to the O'Dell case, the Corrections Department has clamped down. In addition to ``Cyberspace'' organizers, prison officials have denied interviews with O'Dell to ABC News and several state newspapers and TV stations, state officials said.
O'Dell is just the tip of the iceberg. Virginia is one of three states to recently implement policies restricting interviews between the media and prisoners. A bill requiring more open media access to prisoners is now working its way through the General Assembly.
At issue is a policy in which reporters who want to interview inmates must go through Angelone, who rejects most requests for unspecified security concerns. The Virginian-Pilot, for example, has been denied six of seven interviews since last fall. Reporters with the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Roanoke Times have also been denied interviews.
``I've never seen it like this,'' said Ginger Stanley, executive director of the Virginia Press Association. ``I've never seen it this bad.''
Prisoner advocates call the ban on interviews a First Amendment issue, saying inmates are being denied their right to get their stories before the media. They also argue that more open media access would help reveal problems in prisons, the fastest-growing segment of state government.
Supporters of the policy say that the tougher policy is not a complete ban. They warn that inmates could disrupt prisons with frequent press conferences and wardens would lose control of their facilities.
O'Dell, for example, was not completely banned from participating in the ``Cyberspace'' project, orchestrated by Rick Smolan, originator of the popular ``Day in the Life'' photography series. Reporters and photographers were not allowed into Mecklenberg Correctional Center, but O'Dell was interviewed by phone, said Jane Gottesman, project spokesperson.
Still, there were problems with photos. As the information is compiled during the day, starting at 3:01 a.m. today, the project will become available on the Internet's World Wide Web (and on the commercial service, America Online) for viewing and discussion. Instead of photographing O'Dell, organizers will photograph Lori Urs, one of O'Dell's investigators, who helped him set up a site on the Internet last summer. Urs will be photographed inside a Boston jail cell, looking at a picture of O'Dell.
``The state said they denied us access for security reasons,'' Gottesman said Wednesday. ``They didn't really go into it. They were a bit curt.''
O'Dell has said that new DNA tests, unavailable during his 1986 trial, prove he did not kill a Virginia Beach secretary. Last summer, O'Dell and his supporters aired his claims over an Internet ``home page,'' challenging Virginia Beach prosecutors to a debate on national TV. In December, the home page was featured on the front page of The New York Times. A federal appeals court in Richmond is now considering O'Dell's case.
In many ways, Virginia's clampdown is keeping pace with a national trend toward making life harsher for criminals. Last year, Angelone also instituted a policy restricting the amount and types of personal items prisoners could keep in their cells.
The restricted access rules are also designed to make life easier for the staff, supporters of the policy said. In that sense, Virginia is following the lead of California, which initiated a ``temporary'' ban on interviews in July while officials reviewed a rarely used policy that had been in place for 20 years.
California's prison system - with 31 facilities and about 135,000 inmates - was being deluged with requests for interviews with ``celebrity'' prisoners like Charles Manson, whose songwriting became a story last year. And a waiting list developed from reporters who wanted to interview O.J. Simpson, had he been convicted.
In Indiana, the ban was not outright, but policies became more restrictive. Death row inmates can only be interviewed by a single news organization once every 90 days. All media inquiries now go to the warden.
Amy Miller, spokeswoman for the Virginia prison system, would not comment Wednesday on O'Dell's case. But she did say the restricted policy developed last year when media requests for interviews rose dramatically.
``The situation was getting out of hand,'' Miller said. ``We had reporters and photographers in at least one prison every day, and we have our security priorities.''
``For security reasons, we try to keep down the number of outsiders from coming into prisons,'' Miller said.
``There's no ban,'' she added. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Death-row inmate Joseph O'Dell's home page
(http://www.gbiz.com/odell/) will be blocked from ``24 Hours in
Cyberspace.'' (http://www.Cyber24.com/)
by CNB