Vanessa Leggett Wiki
Vanessa Leggett is a freelance journalist, lecturer, author, and First Amendment advocate who was jailed by the U.S. Justice Department for protecting sources and research notes for an independent book about a federal murder-for-hire case. She was jailed for 168 days
Vanessa Leggett Biography
She studied and earned her bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in liberal arts from the University of St. Thomas (Texas).
Leggett researched the case for the death of socialite Doris Angleton, her twin daughters and husband, Robert Angleton, a millionaire and former bookie, which was discovered in her home, with the socialite having 13 gunshot wounds to her face and chest. She made the research for five years. In 1998, she interviewed Roger Angleton, a suspect in a murder-for-hire plot. She compiled notes and hours of audio tape that reportedly detailed how Roger’s brother Robert hired him to murder his brother’s wife Doris. The interviews occurred before Roger’s suicide in his Harris County jail cell and before Robert’s trial.
On June 19, 2001, Judge Melinda Harmon of U.S. District ordered her to appear in court the next day with her notes and tapes for a book she was researching about the murder. The order was in response to a grand jury that had convened to investigate the possibility of filing federal murder charges against the victim’s husband, Robert Angleton. On June 20, 2001, she appearing in court but refused to turn over her notes, citing freedom of the press. She was held in civil contempt of court and jailed by the U.S. Justice Department for refusing to turn over her notes.
Her case was championed by the News organizations, publications, and journalists, advocating that the public interest requires protecting journalists in her position. The New York Times called her incarceration “a brazen assault on 1st Amendment values and the public interest in a free press.”
The Center for Individual Freedom filed an amicus brief in support of her petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case, contributing to her legal defense fund. The Society of Professional Journalists, through its Legal Defense Fund, paid half of her legal expenses.
On January 4, 2002, she was released after serving the maximum sentence, from the Houston Federal Detention Center after 168 days of incarceration on the civil contempt charge when the federal grand jury completed its term. As she walked out of jail, she said to reporters that, it was not so much about her but about the public’s right to a free and independent press.
She then appeared on the Charlie Rose show after her release in April 2004, she said that her “sources” had taken a chance by cooperating with her and giving her information and trusting her with that information and that she felt obligated to honor that. “When I realized that underlying this was an assault on the 1st Amendment, it became something much larger than just my sources or just my book. It was about protecting the free flow of information to the public.”
Vanessa Leggett Age
Leggett was born on May 18, 1968, in Houston, Texas.
Vanessa Leggett Family
Leggett is the daughter of a Houston oil trader. There is no more information about her parent, siblings and other family members. We are yet to know them
Vanessa Leggett Husband
She is a married woman. Although she is so personal and does not speak about her love life so easily, she said in an interview that, she chooses to walk six blocks in the winter sunshine with her husband Daok to meet her lawyer’s office in his office
Vanessa Leggett Book
The FBI Academy, U.S. Department of Justice, released her two books, The Varieties of Homicide and its Research, which was published in 1999, and The Diversity of Homicide, which she co-authored, Paul Blackman and John Jarvis, was published in 2000.