A disorderly conduct charge was dropped against Ian Freeman, the New Hampshire man arrested last fall outside a public auction of town-owned properties at the Town Building.
Now he plans to fight the accusation that he violated a municipal ordinance before the event.
A hearing will be held May 22 in Palmer District Court on a motion to dismiss the ordinance violation of being disorderly before the public auction. Freeman is being represented by William C. Newman, Western Massachusetts director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I didn’t do anything wrong . . . It shouldn’t be a crime to record video in a public place,” Freeman, 32, said Wednesday. “I’m willing to go all the way to help protect people in a similar situation.” (more…)
This is not an uncommon scene – police harassing people who may have been drinking. What is uncommon is Antonio Buehler and the rest of the Peaceful Streets Project who come on the scene and wield cameras and questions.
The whole video has some excellent exchanges, but the embedded video will skip you to a highlight where a cop actually admits he is a thug:
Ultimately, Buehler and friends are able to help the lady that owns the car escape the clutches of the uniformed gang, but not before the gang members jacks her car and arrests her friend.
Peaceful Streets’ activists are doing good work. (more…)
Helena, MT—A Cheshire County, New Hampshire jury convicted local marijuana and liberty activist Rich Paul today on five felony counts of victimless drug charges. Paul had disputed one of the charges on the facts and had openly pursued jury nullification on the other four charges, which involved the sale of small amounts of marijuana. The buyer turned out to be an FBI-paid informant who had entrapped Paul in exchange for leniency for his own heroin offense.
In 2012, New Hampshire passed HB 146, a fully informed jury bill, which guaranteed defendants the ability in court “to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy.” The measure took effect on January 1 of this year.
While the defense did make the case for jury nullification, the judge undermined the intent of the law through misinformation in the instructions he issued to the jury. An attendee at the trial reported on the Free Keene Facebook page that, “Judge John C. Kissinger is reading jury instructions, where he is emphasizing the word “I” in his claim that the jury “must follow the law as *I* explain it”.” (more…)
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