JUDGE TELLS TATTERED COVER TO REVEAL INFO ON BOOK BUY

Drug Suspect's Purchase Was Related To Meth Lab

A Denver judge says Tattered Cover Book Store must give authorities
information on a transaction involving a drug suspect who bought two books
on building a methamphetamine laboratory.

However, District Judge J. Stephen Phillips kept a restraining order intact
that barred Adams County investigators from gaining access to records of
all the books the customer bought during a one-month period.

Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis successfully sought a restraining order
in March after the North Metro Drug Task Force tried to serve a search
warrant to get the customer's book-buying records. Meskis said she was
worried about the First Amendment rights of her customers to buy and read
any books they desire.

Phillips' order Friday satisfied Adams County law enforcement.

"The task force requested, as a compromise, that it would be satisfied if
we had information on this one (purchase)," Gary Jacobson, Thornton
assistant city attorney, said. "I think the judge recognized that it was
appropriate given these circumstances."

Authorities are hoping the store's records on the purchase of the two books
will include the suspect's name.

Meskis and Tattered Cover lawyer Daniel Recht held a news conference after
the ruling to say they may appeal.

Recht maintains investigators could obtain evidence in the case through
other means, such as interviewing witnesses who may have known about a
methamphetamine lab that police busted late last year.

Meskis added that the judge's ruling could affect clients who rely on the
bookstore not to divulge private information about what they read.

"We appreciate that the court has recognized the danger to free speech when
it narrowed the scope of the information sought," Meskis said. "However, we
believe that even turning over the information that the judge has demanded
would have a chilling effect."

In his order the judge appeared to strongly support the Constitutional
rights of the public to "receive information, and ideas, regardless of
social worth, and to receive such information without government intrusion
or observation."

However, Phillips said that witnesses who were in the trailer home at the
time of the raid and may have known about the lab could exercise their
Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The judge said the books are an important piece of the investigators' case
and that detectives had been trying to obtain evidence through "less
obtrusive means" by focusing only on the invoice that's connected to the
purchase of the two books.

"The question is whether there is a less obtrusive means of obtaining this
significant piece of information — who ordered these books?" Phillips said.
"And, there is no other reasonably probative method of acquiring that
precise piece of information."

The investigation into the meth lab started in 1999 when the task force
learned someone was purchasing large amounts of iodine crystals at an Adams
County trailer home.

Earlier this year investigators found a lab, handguns and other potential
evidence during a search at the trailer home. Two people were inside at the
time.

Detectives discovered two books titled The Construction and Operation of
Clandestine Drug Laboratories, and Advanced Techniques of Clandestine
Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture.

Task force members also found a Tattered Cover envelope in a trash can.
Investigators issued a subpoena to the bookstore requesting the name of the
buyer and the title of the books based on an invoice number that was in the
envelope.