Ed Andrieski / AP

Fox television reporter Jana Winter, right, and her attorneys arrive at district court for a hearing for Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes in Centennial, Colo., on Wednesday, April 10, 2013.

A decision on whether a journalist will be sent to jail for not revealing her sources has been delayed until August, a Colorado judge ruled Wednesday.

Lawyers for theater massacre suspect James Holmes have been contending that Fox News reporter Jana Winter needs to reveal the sources of a story she broke last July revealing Holmes had sent a notebook to his psychiatrist outlining his plot.

Holmes is accused of slaughtering 12 people at a midnight showing of Batman in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater last July.

And despite an offer last month to plead guilty, Holmes' lawyers are arguing that the law enforcement sources Winter cited in her piece violated a gag order and may have jeopardized the defendant's right to a fair trial.

Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. has yet to decide whether Winter will need to testify.

On Wednesday, Samour said he must first know if the notebook will be a critical piece of evidence in the case before he can determine if Winter should be obligated to reveal her sources.

After consulting with the lawyers, the judge set the August 19 date, saying it will be likely known by then the role the notebook will play in the case.

Winter and her lawyers have indicated she will not reveal her sources if compelled. She could face jail time as a result.

On Monday, Samour wrote an opinion previewing today's ruling that sided with Winter's lawyers' arguments that that a decision should not be made until it is known whether the notebook will be a critical piece of evidence.

“The notebook may or may not be introduced, and its contents may or may not be of significance. Given these uncertainties, the record is inadequate," Samour wrote in his order.

Lawyers for Holmes may decide to argue that the notebook — which according to the Fox News report is filled with stick figures holding guns and shooting other stick figures — is protected by doctor-patient privilege.

And if his team uses mental-health as a defense, the notebook could became a vital part of the case. 

Winter told the court in a March affidavit that her ability to do her job has already been compromised as a result of the legal issues, and being forced to take the stand will would destroy her career.  

Multiple media organizations from around the country have come in to support Winter and any reporter's rights to not be legally obligated to reveal sources.

Doug Pensinger / Getty Images

Foxnews.com reporter Jana Winter returns to the court house after a midday recess to face Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester regarding evidence in the case of Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes at the Arapahoe County Justice Center on April 1, 2013 in Centennial, Colorado.

When reporter Jana Winter wrote an exclusive story last July on the contents of a notebook that movie-theater massacre suspect James Holmes sent to his psychiatrist, she likely did not think it had the potential to ruin her career or send her to jail.

The day Winter broke the story, her work dominated the news cycle, frequently cited by Fox News reporters and commentators discussing the slaughter of 12 people during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo.

Citing two law enforcement sources, Winter reported that Holmes sent a package to the psychiatrist, at the University of Colorado at Denver, with drawings that outlined his plans. The spiral-bound notebook’s pages were filled with stick figures holding guns and shooting other stick figures.

But the report quickly drew the ire of Holmes’ defense team, which argued that leaking the information violated a gag order limiting pretrial publicity.  

That is why Winter will be back in Colorado on Wednesday. A judge is deciding whether she should be forced to testify, a move that her lawyers say could destroy her reputation as a reporter and have devastating effects throughout journalism. Refusing to reveal her sources could land her in jail up to six months.

The hearing was supposed to be when Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. made his decision on whether Winter would testify. But Winter’s defense team won a minor victory earlier in the week, when Samour announced he would delay his ruling until he decides whether the notebook will be allowed as evidence in the first place.

“The notebook may or may not be introduced, and its contents may or may not be of significance. Given these uncertainties, the record is inadequate,” Samour wrote in his order Monday. 

Dori Ann Hanswirth, a lawyer with the firm Hogan Lovells, which is representing Winter, warned there is still uncertainty over the final ruling.

If Holmes’ defense team decides to make his mental health an issue, the notebook will likely be significant evidence — as will how its contents became public.

Hanswirth said that Samour, appointed to take over the case April 1, has shown hints that he believes Winter may be protected under the First Amendment. Still, regardless of the final ruling, damage has already been done, the lawyer said.

“The chilling effect of this is quite palpable. It has been very hard on my client, and it is a big tax on her and her employer that would be devoted to gathering news,” Hanswirth said. “It’s chilling.”

In an affidavit in March, Winter said sources were already less willing to talk to her. Some fear that simply speaking to her will get them wrapped up in the legal battle, she wrote.

“I rely on the trust of my sources every single day,” Winter told the court. “If I am forced to reveal the identities of persons whom I promised to shield from public exposure, simply put, I will be unable to function effectively in my profession, and my career will be over.”

Hanswirth said her client has the added pressure of defending not only herself but her profession. 

“She needs to stand up for her journalistic ethics and principles for all (reporters),” Hanswirth said.

In what is known as a shield law, Colorado provides some protection for reporters against being forced to reveal sources, but it is not nearly as strong as in other states, like New York, where Winter is based.

It is rare for journalists to face jail time for not revealing sources, and those cases frequently deal with national security. What may have been the highest-profile involved former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who served three months in prison for refusing to testify in a government inquiry of who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Miller has become one of Winter’s most ardent defenders and wrote a column praising her work.

“Those who believe in the importance of a free and independent press must support her. In a democracy, Jana Winter should not have to go to jail to protect her sources and do her job,” Miller wrote.

Others in the media have spoken out against making Winter testify, including affidavits to the court Tuesday from the Colorado Broadcasters Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“The Court should be mindful of the ‘chilling effect’ subpoenas have on reporters,” wrote Bruce Brown, executive director of the committee.

He added: “Journalists often have difficulty convincing reluctant sources to come forward and speak freely and openly. ... The task is even more challenging, if not impossible, if the sources sense that reporters may be compelled to serve as witnesses against those whom they interview.”

Doug Pensinger / Getty Images file

Foxnews.com reporter Jana Winter returns to the court house after a midday recess to face Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester regarding evidence in the case of Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes at the Arapahoe County Justice Center on April 1, 2013 in Centennial, Colorado.

A journalist who could face jail time if she refuses to reveal the source of a report detailing the contents of a notebook Colorado massacre suspect James Holmes sent his psychiatrist won a temporary reprieve on Monday.

Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr., who is presiding over the Aurora movie theater shooting case, ruled that he will not make Fox News reporter Jana Winter testify until he decides if the notebook will be allowed as evidence in the first place.

The move reflects the argument made by Winter's defense attorneys that the testimony is not yet "ripe" for ruling.

"The notebook may or may not be introduced, and its contents may or may not be of significance. Given these uncertainties, the record is inadequate," Samour wrote in his order Monday. 

The judge said at a ruling last week that the New York-based journalist could face six months in jail if she refused to testify, according to the Denver Post. Though Winter must still attend a hearing Wednesday, there will be no final decision on whether she will be legally obligated to testify until a later date.

Winter angered prosecutors last July when she reported for FoxNews.com that two law enforcement sources revealed to her Holmes had sent a University of Colorado at Denver psychiatrist a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people."

Prosecutors maintained that leaking such information was in violation of a court gag order limiting pretrial publicity.

In December, 14 law enforcement agents testified regarding the leak, and all denied speaking to the media about the notebook or knowing anyone who could have.

Lawyers for Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 and injuring 58 during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Auroa, Colo., argued the notebook cannot be submitted as evidence because it is protected by doctor-patient privilege.

But if Holmes decides to use mental-health as a defense, the notebook will likely become significant evidence. In late March, Holmes defense team offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Prosecutors, however, rejected that move as a publicity stunt, and are seeking the death penalty.

In a March affidavit obtained by NBC News, Winter said being forced to testify would ruin her career as a reporter and make it impossible to do her job as an investigative journalist. 

Her reputation in the field will be “irreparably tarnished,” she wrote.

"The documents and testimony Holmes seeks would violate my promises to my sources that I would keep their identities a secret. Futhermore, having to travel to Colorado to reveal my confidential sources for the article will cause me severe, irreparable hardship in a number of ways," Winter wrote to the court.

Along with her career, Winter said her life could be in danger if forced to appear in court.

She said she has been the subject of Internet threats from Holmes supporters, and even found a website containing personal photos of her family with “a scary degree of detail about our personal lives.”

“I cannot even begin to think about what might happen if I actually travel to Colorado at a time and place where these kinds of people will know where I am," Winter wrote.

Nevertheless, Winter will be in court on Wednesday.

Members of the media have come to Winter’s defense in voicing outrage over the prospects of making her testify. Colorado shield law does protect journalists from having to reveal sources, but there are circumstances under which reporters could be compelled to reveal their sources or face contempt of court charges.

"Courts have the right to enforce the confidentiality of investigations and that may in some cases require punishing leakers," National Press Club President Angela Greiling Keane said in a statement. "But attempting to get that information by subpoenaing reporters in order to learn their anonymous sources goes too far.”

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have introduced a bill declaring that the state has the power to establish an official religion — a direct challenge to the First Amendment.

One professor of politics called the measure “the verge of being neo-secessionist,” and another said it was reminiscent of how Southern states objected to the Supreme Court’s 1954 integration of public schools.

The bill says that federal courts do not have the power to decide what is constitutional, and says the state does not recognize federal court rulings that prohibit North Carolina and its schools from favoring a religion.

The bill was introduced Monday by two Republican representatives from Rowan County, north of Charlotte, and sponsored by seven other Republicans. The party controls both chambers of the North Carolina Legislature.

The two lawmakers who filed the bill, state Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford, did not immediately return calls Wednesday from NBC News. 

The American Civil Liberties Union sued last month to stop the Rowan County Commission from opening meetings with Christian prayers. One of those prayers declared that “there is only one way to salvation, and that is Jesus Christ,” the ACLU said.

The bill does not specify a religion.

The North Carolina ACLU chapter said in a statement Tuesday that the sponsors of the bill “fundamentally misunderstand constitutional law and the principle of the separation of powers that dates back to the founding of this country.” 

North Carolina scholars also cast doubt on the bill.

“It has elements of not being American,” Gary Freeze, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College, told The Salisbury Post. “I think it goes far beyond religion and frankly doesn’t have a lot to do with North Carolina or tradition.”

Another professor at the college, Michael Bitzer, told the newspaper that the bill is based on discredited legal theory that the states can declare themselves exempt from federal law.

“We saw this in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education,” he said, referencing the integration ruling. “The belief is that the states hold more power than the federal government. If the federal government does something, the states can simply ignore it.”

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 10:45 AM EDT

BC Students for Sexual Health

Boston College Students for Sexual Health have been distributing condoms on campus since 2009. The group is not recognized by the university and was threatened with disciplinary action by college officials if they did not stop handing out contraception.

Promoting safe sex could be dangerous for some Boston College students after school officials threatened them with disciplinary action for distributing condoms on campus, a practice administrators say violates the mission of the Catholic institution.

The email warning — which has spurred outrage and threats of legal action from the ACLU foundation of Massachusetts  —  was sent to students who designated their dorm rooms as "Safe Sites," places where students can go to to get free condoms and sexual health information.

The condom campaign was started in 2009 by Boston College Students for Sexual Health, an unofficial student group not recognized by the college yet has existed with the school's knowledge.  

But on March 15, Dean of Students Paul Chebator and Director of Residence Life George Arey sent an email to the students saying, "The distribution of condoms is not congruent with our values and traditions."  

"We do need to advise you that should we ­receive any reports that you are, in fact, distributing condoms on campus, the matter would be referred to the student conduct office for disciplinary action by the university,” the letter warned.  

The note came as a complete shock to senior Lizzie Jekanowski, chair of Boston College Students for Sexual Health. 

She said in the four years Safe Sites have existed, the group has always had "an open and positive relationship" with administrators. Though school officials have frequently told the group they are at odds with the practice of handing out contraception, Jekanowski said there have never been any warnings of disciplinary action, a notion school administrators disagree with. 

"None of our actions have changed at all in the past four years," Jekanowski told NBC News. "It came out of nowhere."  

The email also garnered reaction from Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts who has advised the organization over the years. The warning of disciplinary action, Wunsch said, violates the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act.   

"Our view is that Boston College has a First Amendment right to explain, advertise, and persuade students of their views, but they have gone a step further by threatening these students," she said.  

But school officials maintain they are a private, religious institution and have the right to set and enforce policies as they see fit. Jack Dunn, spokesman for the college, dismissed the ACLU's involvement, saying they have no standing in the matter at the Jesuit school.  

Dunn said that student distributing contraception had "taken it to a new level," which prompted the warning after four years of students engaging in the practice.  No longer confined to dorm rooms, Dunn said students had become a visible and disruptive presence on campus, handing out condoms in front of churches and on sidewalks.  

"Boston College doesn't care how students handle their private lives. You can have condoms in your room," he said. "But it has become an attempt to make a mockery out of Catholic values."  

School administrators had also told the Boston College Students for Sexual Health in meetings to stop handing out condoms on campus prior to the email being sent, Dunn said.

He was hopeful a solution could be reached before any disciplinary action was taken. He would not speculate on what the punishment could be, saying they would go through the disciplinary process like any student who violated the college's code of conduct."  

"If these students had been circumspect, discrete, private -- it never would have come to a head," Dunn said.  

While Jekanowski said her group has handed out contraception on an off-campus sidewalk, she said she was "personally offended" by the suggestion that the students had been mocking the Catholic church. Instead, she argued, the group was living up to the school's Jesuit teachings.

"We have the privilege of attending a Jesuit Catholic university so dedicated to the development of the self — both the body and the soul — that we find it both appropriate and necessary to advocate for these sexual health issues that are an integral aspect of that process,” she said in a statement released on March 24.

Boston College Students for Sexual Health will continue to hand out contraception, and the the 18 Safe Sites will remain open, Jekanowski said. The group will meet with the dean of students and other school administrators on April 29.

Though the ACLU is hopeful the matter will remain out of court, Wunsch said the civil rights organization will be with them if it gets to that level.

"We will continue to support them however far they want to go on this issue," she said.

East Carolina University says its decision to fire the adviser to the student newspaper was based on a “personnel matter” and not a First Amendment issue related to the paper's publication of photographs of a streaker at a football game.

Paul Isom, adviser to the The East Carolinian, was terminated last Wednesday, two months after the newspaper published pictures of a nude streaker at a Nov. 5 football game against Southern Miss.

At the time, the university said student newspaper’s decision to publish the photos, which showed full frontal nudity, was “in very poor taste.”

“They told me they wanted to go in a different direction,” Isom told The Daily Reflector last week about his termination. “They were very cautious not to give me a real reason.”

The firing drew the ire of free-speech groups. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a national advocacy organization, sent a letter to the university’s chancellor, Steve Ballard, calling the firing unwarranted and asking that Isom be reinstated immediatetely.

“Given The East Carolinian's unequivocal independence, ECU may not punish The East Carolinian for its exercise of expression protected by the First Amendment,” the letter said.

Virginia Hardy, vice chancellor for student affairs, released a statement Tuesday explaining the university’s actions. The university declined further comment.

"We're going to let the statement speak for itself," Mary Schulken, university director of public affairs, told msnbc.com.

Here is Hardy’s statement in full:

East Carolina University is concerned that a decision to change leadership in its director of student media role has been connected to a First Amendment issue without full knowledge of the facts at hand.  It is important to distinguish between any personnel matter and the First Amendment.

We ask all advocacy groups and the public to trust our internal process, which has been deliberate, correct and legal, as we move forward to address these two separate issues.

The First Amendment demands public universities provide student journalists the opportunity to make their own news decisions and learn from them without interference. ECU puts that principle first. It has upheld it, especially in this instance.

We support The East Carolinian fully. Students have been the central focus of what we have done and the decisions that have been made. We have involved them openly when it was constructive and useful for their education, including holding open, informational discussions with the editorial staff to talk about the impact of news decisions.

Regarding editorial decisions in student media, we have respectfully allowed the student journalists to take their own course. We have and will continue to support their right to make decisions in publishing a newspaper for their fellow students.

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