Posted on 10/04/2007 12:53:39 AM PDT by ninonitti
It’s “very unusual” for a judge to issue an order preventing news organizations from running or publishing stories, a Boston civil rights attorney said yesterday.
“They should have been allowed to run the story,” attorney Howard Friedman said of WHDH-TV (Ch. 7), which was banned by a judge from airing a story yesterday on the autopsy results of two Boston firefighters killed in August.
“In our system with the First Amendment, in almost all instances, you can run with the story but suffer the consequences,” Friedman added. “Obviously, they publish at their peril. If it’s inaccurate, if there’s some damage caused . . . there could be lawsuits.”
Technically, Friedman said, autopsy reports are not public record, but he stressed that it’s “very unusual for a judge to order any newspaper or press to not publish.”
Yesterday, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Merita A. Hopkins prohibited WHDH from airing its story.
In court, Paul Hynes, the attorney representing the Boston firefighters’ Local 718, argued that it was a privacy issue and pointed to a 1989 decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court that said medical examiners’ autopsy reports are not public because they are medical records.
That decision reversed a lower court ruling that said autopsies were public record after the Boston Globe sued the state’s chief medical examiner’s office for the autopsies of three patients who died at Bridgewater State Hospital.
Hopkins, who was sworn in as a judge in August 2006, is Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s former chief of staff and was his legal counsel for more than a decade.
Last night, the Herald published an online report detailing the autopsy results, which found that one of two hero firefighters who died fighting a West Roxbury blaze was legally drunk at the fire while the other had traces of illegal drugs in his bloodstream.
During its 11 p.m. newscast last night, WHDH reported that it had the information, but was blocked by the judge from reporting it.
Friedman said WHDH will likely win its court appeal today because the “cat’s out of the bag.”
IMO 10 years as Mumble's Consigliera should qualify her for an indictment not the bench
IIRC this judge also happens to be married to a retired FBI agent whose code name with the Bulger Gang was "Pipe" and who used to have Christmas envelopes passed to him by the boyos.
Bless the Herald, printing truth for truth’s sake.
Damn the rest.
bttt
Between this abomination, and Congressional Communists pushing hard to censor/control what is said on the radio, I have to ask just what the hell is happening in my country and what, if anything, is going to be done to stop it?
now i can say the same thing about judges.
LOL try living in the Peoples Commonwealth for a while then nothing will suprise you except that it's so open around here.
I’ve lived in the Boston area (now Boston proper) for almost all of my life, and no one outside this city seems to grasp how utterly corrupt it is. It’s the liberals’ town and as this story shows, they are not only unafraid about exercising their power in shocking ways, they’re arrogantly BLATANT about it because they know there will be no backlash. Mumbles is a disgrace and a boob—quite a combo!
She’s not exactly forthcoming here either:
http://www.mass.gov/courts/courtsandjudges/judgesandjudicialofficers/hopkinsm.html
Willard.....I mean Mitt do you have any regrets about any of your appointments as Governor?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/27/romney_names_4_women_to_bench/
The judge is following the law.
big dig kill anyone lately?
She maybe following the SJC but remember how often their rulings get overturned by the USSC by 9-0.
IIRC the story was based on interviews with individuals with knowledge of the case.
Sounds like Boston and their New England Patriots have a lot in common.
I wouldn't go that far. I was really outraged when I first heard about the "videotaping" thing, but when I heard the facts I was like "That's it--they used avideo cam instead of just taking notes?" Not exactly the same as a judge stopping freedom of the press. And the Pats are doing incredible so far this season, being the first team since 1920 to score so high in their first games, scoring each quarter.
Socialism, thy name is Woman.
Luckily no; but the state AG is now after a small adhesives manufacturer instead of the big engineering outfits and contractors who spec'd and installed the epoxy anchors.
Merita used to advertise The Lone Ranger television series waaaaaaay back. Does anyone else remember that? I was just a tiny child at that time. LOL!
That's an iffy claim. Prior restraint in the US is exceptionally rare, allowed by SCOTUS only when publishing information will put lives at risk. The analogy used by one SCOTUS opinion is publishing the movements of troop transports at sea.
In this case, the only risk is one of embarrassment -- and that wasn't enough to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers. If the records were illegally obtained, then the paper could be liable for that -- after the story is published.
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