Vanessa Leggett


Vanessa Leggett is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and First Amendment advocate who was jailed by the U.S. Justice Department for 168 days for protecting sources and research notes for an independent book about a federal murder-for-hire case. At the time, it was the longest contempt-of-court imprisonment of a journalist in United States history for protecting sources.

Early life and education

Leggett, the daughter of a Houston oil trader, earned her bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in liberal arts from the University of St. Thomas.

Case history

In April 1997, the body of Houston, Texas, socialite Doris Angleton was discovered in her home. She died from 13 gunshot wounds to her face and chest. At the time of the death, her twin daughters and husband, Robert Angleton, a millionaire and former bookie, were at a softball game.
Leggett researched the case for five years. In 1998, in a jailhouse interview of Roger Angleton, a suspect in a murder-for-hire plot. Leggett 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 just before Roger's suicide in his Harris County jail cell and before Robert's trial.
On June 19, 2001, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon ordered Leggett 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. Leggett, appearing in court on June 20, 2001, refused to turn over her notes, citing freedom of the press. She was then held in civil contempt of court and jailed by the U.S. Justice Department for refusing to turn over her notes.
News organizations, publications and journalists championed Leggett's case, advocating that the public
interest requires protecting journalists in Leggett's position. The New York Times called Leggett's 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 Leggett's petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case. The center also contributed to her legal defense fund. In addition, the Society of Professional Journalists, through its Legal Defense Fund, paid half of Leggett's legal expenses.
She was released on January 4, 2002, 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. Leggett said to reporters as she walked out of jail, "This is not so much about me. It's about the public's right to a free and independent press."
After her release, Leggett, appearing on the Charlie Rose show in April 2004, said, " had taken a chance by cooperating with me and giving me information and trusting me with that information. And I 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."

Career

Leggett in 2002 with , a division of Random House, about the Angleton murder for a reported $600,000 advance.
She continued her career as a freelance writer, including a about her 5-1/2 months behind bars at the Federal Detention Center in Houston. Leggett also conducted an exclusive interview with accused serial killer Robert Durst, writing for Esquire magazine in 2015.

Criminal justice lecturer

From 1995 to 2016, Leggett taught literature, criminology and writing courses at the University of Houston-Downtown, including at the university's Criminal Justice Training Center, where she taught Texas police recruits and lectured veteran homicide investigators.
In 2002, she headlined with journalist Bob Woodward at the 23rd Annual Washington Writers Conference held at the National Press Club. At the same event, Leggett was given the Washington Independent Writers' President's Award. In addition, the Washington Independent Writers' Legal and Educational Fund presented Leggett with a $1,000 check for her stand in support of the First Amendment.
She also lectured at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, and the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement.
She gave the keynote address at the Institute for Ethics and Journalism's 2007 conference, which was sponsored by the Knight Foundation's Program in Journalism Ethics and Washington and Lee University's department of journalism and mass communications. In 2015, she sat on the First Amendment Advocacy panel at the National Press Club and discussed the need for stronger legal protections for journalists. And in 2016, she gave a presentation at the at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
She has also given talks to the New York City Bar Association and the FBI Academy's Behavioral Science Unit.

Books

The FBI Academy, U.S. Department of Justice, released two books by Leggett, The Varieties of Homicide and its Research, published in 1999, and The Diversity of Homicide, co-authored by Leggett, Paul Blackman and John Jarvis, published in 2000.

Awards

She is married to Doak Leggett.