A court gets it right-- A feel-good ruling. [Archive] - Debate Policy

logroller

02-27-2012, 12:50 PM

We often get passionate about issues where the courts have failed. Sometimes, and I believe more often than not, they get it right. I was doing a little research about videotaping police, the relevant laws that people have been arrested and charged for violating, and the case law which surrounds the issue. I came across this case, Glik v Cunniffe et al (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1147762352783846454&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr)., and in reading it I felt it was poignant enough to warrant posting.

As he was walking past the Boston Common on the evening of October 1, 2007, Simon Glik caught sight of three police officers — the individual defendants here — arresting a young man. Glik heard another bystander say something to the effect of, "You are hurting him, stop." Concerned that the officers were employing excessive force to effect the arrest, Glik stopped roughly ten feet away and began recording video footage of the arrest on his cell phone.

After placing the suspect in handcuffs, one of the officers turned to Glik and said, "I think you have taken enough pictures." Glik replied, "I am recording this. I saw you punch him." An officer[1] then approached Glik and asked if Glik's cell phone recorded audio. When Glik affirmed that he was recording audio, the officer placed him in handcuffs, arresting him for, inter alia, unlawful audio recording in violation of Massachusetts's wiretap statute. Glik was taken to the South Boston police station. In the course of booking, the police confiscated Glik's cell phone and a computer flash drive and held them as evidence. entire text here (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1147762352783846454&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr)

revelarts

03-02-2012, 06:28 PM

this is feel GREAT ruling.. wow!!

...LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.
Simon Glik was arrested for using his cell phone's digital video camera to film several police officers arresting a young man on the Boston Common. The charges against Glik, which included violation of Massachusetts's wiretap statute and two other state-law offenses, were subsequently judged baseless and were dismissed. Glik then brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that his arrest for filming the officers constituted a violation of his rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.
In this interlocutory appeal, the defendant police officers challenge an order of the district court denying them qualified immunity on Glik's constitutional claims. We conclude, based on the facts alleged, that Glik was exercising clearly-established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause. We therefore affirm....

The defendants moved to dismiss Glik's complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that the allegations of the complaint failed to adequately support Glik's claims and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity "because it is not well-settled that he had a constitutional right to record the officers." At a hearing on the motion, the district court focused on the qualified immunity defense, noting that it presented the closest issue. After hearing argument from the parties, the court orally denied the defendants' motion, concluding that "in the First Circuit . . . this First Amendment right publicly to record the activities of police officers on public business is established."

...The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative.

It is firmly established that the First Amendment's aegis extends further than the text's proscription on laws "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information. As the Supreme Court has observed, "the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw."....

....The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles. Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting "the free discussion of governmental affairs."...

...It is of no significance that the present case, unlike Iacobucci and many of those cited above, involves a private individual, and not a reporter, gathering information about public officials. The First Amendment right to gather news is, as the Court has often noted, not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public's right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press.
....
In our society, police officers are expected to endure significant burdens caused by citizens' exercise of their First Amendment rights. See City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 461 (1987) (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3837274703391855779&hl=en&as_sdt=2,47&as_vis=1) ("[T]he First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers."). Indeed, "[t]he freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state." Id. at 462-63. The same restraint demanded of law enforcement officers in the face of "provocative and challenging" speech, id. at 461 (quoting Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4 (1949) (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2189837708321658845&hl=en&as_sdt=2,47&as_vis=1)), must be expected when they are merely the subject of videotaping that memorializes, without impairing, their work in public spaces.

I'll sleep better tonight.
thanks Log for posting this.