Former CNN host Don Lemon was arrested around midnight Thursday night for his involvement with a group of people who disrupted services inside Cities Church in Minneapolis last week, apparently because they believed a pastor there is also an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. Mainstream media outlets are erupting with indignation that a “journalist” is being prosecuted for “covering” a news event.
Is Lemon potentially criminally liable, or is he constitutionally protected as a journalist?
The short answer: There is no such thing as journalistic immunity in criminal law, so yes, Lemon is potentially criminally liable. But proving he committed a crime will be quite difficult.
Many journalists seem to imagine they can’t be prosecuted if all they’re doing is “covering” the news, and usually that’s true. But reality is not always so simple. By his own admission, Lemon met with the Cities Church protest group in advance, knew a lot about what they were planning to do, knew when and where they were planning to do it, kept those facts secret, and then entered and filmed the event while it was taking place.
Now imagine that a journalist did all of that, but the event being planned was murder.
