In a six page decision issued this week, NH Hillsborough superior court judge Gillian L. Abramson dismissed the misdemeanor wiretapping charge against Alfredo Valentin – affirming the right to record police in public includes secret recordings. The judge cites both the Glik and Gericke cases which were important federal cases affirming the right to record police in public. The state argued in this case, that since the recording was secret, the right to record doesn’t apply in NH, where the wiretapping statute is ridiculously oppressive. The judge smacked that claim down:
the Court finds that the First Amendment protects secretly filming police in public, for the same reasons that the First Amendment generally protects filming police. The public has the right to gather and disseminate information about the police.
Free State Project early mover and attorney Brandon Ross is Valentin’s lawyer (Ross has previously beaten wiretapping charges at the NH supreme court.) and had this to say, in an exclusive interview for Free Keene, about the judge’s decision: “By charging him with a felony, the state destroyed my client’s career–and made things much worse with this wild goose chase prosecution. I’m glad the court wasn’t fooled by the state’s manifestly incorrect representations about the law. I look forward to him getting his day in federal court.”
Attorney Brandon Ross
Ross also excoriated the NH legislature for their inaction on fixing the horrible wiretapping statutes, saying, “This never needed to happen. Numerous bills have been brought to the legislature to fix this. Each time, the legislature has failed to act to bring simple, necessary clarity to a law which police are continually abusing. But the NH chiefs of police scare them each time, and nothing happens. The resulting litigation from that spineless failure to act, does nothing but inconvenience citizens and cost taxpayers.”
You can read the full six-page order here. Will the state attorney general’s office appeal to the NH supreme court and risk making this decision apply to the entire state? Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
Early this morning, Free Keene broke the news that Cop Block founder Ademo Freeman was arrested on a warrant for felony “criminal mischief”. We now have a copy of the case summary from Indiana, which shows the charge is only a class B misdemeanor, not a felony.
So, that’s the good news. The bad news is he’s still in jail, likely until Monday afternoon’s scheduled court appearance in Kansas, where he was arrested for the warrant that the Shawnee, IN police claimed was for a felony.
The War on Chalk continues nationwide with tonight’s arrest of Cop Block founder and Free Keene blogger Ademo Freeman. Ademo has been arrested in Shawnee, KS on a felony warrant purportedly for “criminal mischief” charges over chalking the Noblesville, IN police department a couple of weeks ago. Ademo is expected to be arraigned on Monday and whether he’ll be extradited to Indiana remains to be seen.
The Noblesville PD chalking incident happened the day before Ademo and Brian Sumner kicked off the Cop Block Mobile Accountability for Cops (MAC) tour. According to their post about the incident, Cop Blockers visited Noblesville police department and used liquid chalk to write various messages directed toward and about the police. Later on, they are threatened by multiple Noblesville cops in a parking lot – see the video here. The gang members detain Ademo and Brian for a quarter-hour and claim that one of “their group” used real paint during the chalking outside the PD.
Now Ademo is in Johnson county jail in Kansas on a felony warrant. As a result, requests for calls to the jail and PD rang out on Facebook. Initially, the jail denied having him and police on the phone played games like one claiming his first name was “deputy” (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that one.):
Should you wish to call the jail and/or police and express yourself, here are the numbers: Shawnee PD: 913-631-2150. Johnson County Jail: 913-715-5100. Here’s the agency that issued the warrant, Noblesville PD: 317-776-1588
If you think the massive call flood that these arrests trigger is awesome, then imagine what it would be like if those people willing to call a jail in favor of setting someone peaceful free from captivity were instead willing to move to the same geographic area. Imagine the cop blocking that could be possible. Rather than call the jail, you could go there with others. You could even go to the homes of the people who kidnapped Ademo. Ademo moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. Here are 101 reasons why you should consider doing the same thing.
This week’s AKPF #1 installment features no content of particular offense to the audiences of You Tube, enabling it to be viewed by a much wider demographic. Enjoy special episode Trielium, featuring footage captured in Keene on October 02, 2015.
Considerable time has passed since the city of Keene first filed a lawsuit against the meddlesome youths known as Robin Hooders. Following three days of testimonial hearings in October of 2013, a reunion party was hosted by the court for all initially involved, with three of six activists returning. Fine-tuning their excess to scale down the event significantly, the city would only present two witnesses, countered by two representing the defense, enabling what originally cost three days to wrap up within one.
The complications keeping the Robin Hood of Keene legal saga alive are as convoluted as the civil court system itself, which would have otherwise been unnavigable by the activists on defense if it were not for the appreciated representation by civil rights advocate attorney Jon Meyer. As the city’s attorneys began their case, Meyer declined to offer an opening statement, but instead asked if the city could clarify the specific demands it is seeking for “injunctive relief”.
Robert Dietel outlined that the CoK now requests no more than a ten foot “buffer zone” to float around parking enforcement officers. The request seemed modest compared to prior demands for 50, 30, and 20 feet of bureaucrat safety buffers. The tone of the day, echoing a sentiment expressed at the supreme court, seemed to be that the city’s attorneys would accept whatever “injunctive relief” they could be granted, anything to declare a small victory in what must be a loss of staggering proportions, both financially and politically. (more…)
I got a sad letter from my attorney this week. He informed me that the Supreme Court of NH upheld the lower court’s decision to deny my application for a license to carry a handgun discreetly. You can read the decision here:
