Ohio Cops Decide First Amendment Doesn't Exist, Arrest Newspaper Editor For Committing Journalism

[LiberalArkie]

Tue, Nov 29th 2022 10:42am - Tim Cushing

Ohio cops just can’t seem to get their head around First Amendment protections. A case hopefully en route to a Supreme Court review involves Parma, Ohio cops who decided it was completely legal to arrest a town resident for creating a clearly satirical Facebook page that suggested the Parma PD was offering free abortions in a roaming van and promoting a “pedophile reform” event.

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So, it’s perhaps unsurprising that this state is home to yet another egregious violation of First Amendment rights. An ongoing murder trial involving multiple defendants has resulted in the editor of small local paper being arrested for performing an act of journalism.

As Adam Steinbaugh’s post for FIRE points out, courts permit recordings and broadcasting of criminal trials. There are a few exceptions. The relevant exception here is that witnesses can request their testimony not be recorded or broadcast and, if the court agrees, this permission is revoked during this testimony.

One of the defendants in this trial — Jake Wagner — made this request and had it granted. Nonetheless, someone attending the trial recorded it and passed it on to Derek Myers, who runs the Scioto Valley Guardian. That act of fully protected First Amendment expression led to this:

On Oct. 28, the Guardian published ten minutes of audio — recorded by someone else in violation of the court order — of Jake Wagner’s in-court testimony, with this note:

The Guardian received a portion of Jake Wagner’s testimony on his first day on the witness stand. The Guardian wants to disclose that the audio was not recorded by a member of the media and was submitted to the Guardian’s newsroom by a courthouse source who is authorized to have their cell phone in the room.

Myers was arrested on Nov. 1 pursuant to a warrant obtained by Sgt. Joshua Carver of the Pike County sheriff’s office. That same day, Sgt. Carver seized Myers’ laptop from a room at the courthouse used by journalists reporting on the trial.

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https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/29/ohio-cops-decide-first-amendment-doesnt-exist-arrest-newspaper-editor-for-committing-journalism/

[TigressDem]

1. Sorry. If someone has the right to a fair trial, a secret recording of their testimony is NOT legal.

FROM YOUR OWN POST...

courts permit recordings and broadcasting of criminal trials. There are a few exceptions. The relevant exception here is that witnesses can request their testimony not be recorded or broadcast and, if the court agrees, this permission is revoked during this testimony.

One of the defendants in this trial — Jake Wagner — made this request and had it granted.



Now the crazy crap about someone's FB page, I get it.

But when someone is involved as a witness in a murder trial, their life could be in danger. Who knows? So if the court said "NO recording him" then it wasn't a legal recording.

[VMA131Marine]

2. News organisations are broadly protected even if

the information they publish was obtained illegally. Does the Pentagon Papers case come to mind? If any of the highly classified documents that Trump stole had made it to a news organisation, they would have been well within their 1st Amendment rights to publish it.