updated 10:54 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers for the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday urged a federal appeals court to toss out a jail sentence imposed on two reporters refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from a steroids investigation.

In a court filing Wednesday, the lawyers asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court’s ruling that reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams should be imprisoned for up to 18 months for not revealing the source of the transcripts.

The court filing argued that the government didn’t exhaust all alternative ways to find out the reporters’ source before moving to jail them. Secondly, the reporters’ lawyers argued that federal law should allow journalists to protect the anonymity of their sources without fear of prison. Most states have those so-called shield laws in place, but there isn’t a federal one right now.

The court filing also argues that the government didn’t suffer any damages and that the reporters’ coverage of the steroids scandal raised awareness of a severe problem plaguing professional sports and amateur athletics alike.

“The lack of harm to the government is unrebutted and the reporting’s beneficial impact undisputed,” the filing stated.

A spokesman for the U.S Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which is handling the leak probe, didn’t return a telephone call for comment after hours.

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In previous court filings, prosecutors asked the San Francisco-based appeals court to uphold a judge’s contempt orders against Fainaru-Wada and Williams, arguing that reporters do not have special privileges that allow them to keep evidence from a grand jury.

The appeals court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 12.

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