A Spokane reporter is sought to testify in an upcoming federal trial, a rare move

May 14-Federal defense attorneys are seeking for a Spokane reporter to testify on behalf of their client, who is charged with conspiracy against immigration agents.

The act is a rare move. And the reporter's company, Range Media, has chosen to fight it.

Erin Sellers, who has been a reporter for Range Media for nearly three years, is listed in new documents as a witness for the defense of Bajun Mavalwalla II. His trial is set to begin Monday.

Mavalwalla II, along with two others, is charged with conspiracy to impede or injure immigration agents during Spokane's mass June 11 protest, which erupted in the city's streets over the detainment of two legal immigrants. A judge released one of them after seven months in detention, calling his detainment an "abuse" of the government's discretion. The other immigrant self-deported, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review.

Sellers was at the protest that day and throughout the evening, according to her reporting, which documents the events in detail and sometimes in first-person. The events are timestamped. The story also includes pictures and video taken by Sellers and other Range reporters, which show protesters linking arms, chanting and smoke canisters being deployed by police in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Range was also able to publish a quote at the time from Mavalwalla II's co-defendant, Jac Archer.

Sellers' subpoena has put her and the outlet in a difficult position. If she must testify, it's likely Range Media would pull her from covering the story.

Range Media founder Luke Baumgarten told The Spokesman-Review in a statement that the outlet will challenge any subpoena issued for Sellers.

"We feel like the reason we structured our beats and do our reporting at Range is so the people who have been covering the story since the beginning are the ones to continue to do that reporting," Baumgarten said.

Baumgarten said going forward with the subpoena would likely be a disservice to the outlet's readers. Sellers would no longer be able to cover the trial should she be subpoenaed because of ethical concerns, Baumgarten said. Range's plan has always been for Sellers to cover the trial. If not, he added, the scope of the coverage may suffer without her knowledge.

Reporters often fight testifying at trials because it undermines their journalistic ethics. Their public reporting is their testimony of what they saw, heard and experienced, free to be consumed by the public, instead of being required to appear on behalf of the prosecution or defense like they are taking a position on a case.

Using journalists to fight a case is rare, said the Poynter Institute's senior vice president Kelly McBride. It's also known among lawyers as being somewhat inappropriate and a typical last resort. In some cases, lawyers consider the subpoenaing a journalist as infringing on the First Amendment because the government should not be able to influence the press, she added.

"Journalists don't want to be weaponized by the system because it's very important the public perceive journalists as independent servants of the public record," McBride said. "When they end up doing work for anyone in the criminal justice system, it's confusing for the public because they don't know where the journalist's loyalty resides. That is ultimately harmful for democracy."

To use Sellers' story as an exhibit during the trial, the attorney would have to call her to the stand to talk about it, she said.

Mavalwalla II's attorney, Matt Duggan, did not respond for comment Tuesday.

Fighting a subpoena also takes time, effort and money. Some of those come less easily to local newsrooms, which are smaller and have less funding.

"It's hard. It's hard for many local news editors, who are trying to do as much as they can without calling lawyers because they are expensive," McBride said. "And the lawyers will tell you that dealing with legal things without a lawyer puts you at risk."

Should a journalist take part in something they are covering, it likely precludes them from continuing to cover the story to avoid a conflict of interest.

McBride said Range could either pull Sellers completely, or as an alternative, let her continue to cover the story but post a disclaimer at the end of every published story that notifies the reader Sellers was subpoenaed and that the outlet is fighting to quash it.

In the past year, McBride said she's seen an increase in journalists and editors reaching out for expertise to handle legal threats to journalism.

Once a high-ranking official attempts to subpoena a well-known journalist, that sentiment tends to trickle down to local markets, McBride said.

"These kind of things have a contagion effect to them," she said. "The next time they are in a situation where they could get subpoenaed, they start asking themselves if they want to publish. Of course, the answer is yes. But chilling effects are sneaky."

Editor's note: Reporter Alexandra Duggan and defense attorney Matt Duggan are not related.

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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 11:45 PM.