I just couldn’t let this comment to a recent post on the Pechonis arrest video go.
What exactly is the problem with this video? (0.00 / 0)
Why does anyone care? Is it just that the video was made, and posted? I was expecting to see the cops smash the guy’s face or something, given the all the coverup innuendo.
You threaten judges, you get arrested. Big whoop.
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by: CentralMassDad @ Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 12:34:50 PM EDT
Where to begin?
First, are we so used to seeing violence in the media and in our society that unless blood flows or people come to blows our response is “Big whoop”? Police showing up at your door, cuffing you (the lack of resistance is exactly part of the point), and then illegally swarming through your house – all for an ill advised sentence posted on a Web site – is something we should all be alarmed about. The police could have approached this in a dozen different ways, starting by asking Pechonis to remove the comment and then talking to him to assess the actual danger he poses. Instead, they chose a very heavy handed approach.
Mary Jean saw that and decided to make the video capturing the arrest availble to visitors to her Web site. The next thing she knows she gets a letter threatening her with felony prosecution. For what? For posting a video someone sent her.
What alarms me is that people like CentralMassDad don’t see the problem with this. Obviously a federal judge saw a big problem. And his ruling has drawn in the involvement of the Attorney General, the ACLU and an elite Boston law firm.
I’m sure someone famous once said something along the lines that if you are not willing to defend your rights then you don’t deserve them.
Understandably this issue is getting uncomfortable for Reilly supporters because Jean’s lawyers are scheduled to file a response to Reilly’s appeal by September 11, just a week before the primary election.
You can be sure that the lawyers will be articulating why it is a scary day when a powerful law enforcement agency tries to use its investigative and prosecutorial might to intimidate a working mother who likes to make her views known on the Internet during her free time.
1. The contents of the video. Again, I say, big whoop.
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The guy threatened a judge. Judges are at risk of being targets of violence by nuts who don’t like it that they lost. This is something that is rightfully taken rather seriously. Google “Judge John J. Wood” or Woody harrelson’s father, or Judge Joan Lefkow. If I had been calling the shots, they would have hit that house like he was concealing Elian Gonzalez, and the guy would have had his nose in the carpet and a knee in his back within 10 seconds. You threaten a judge, you don’t get a polite discussion of the issue, you go to jail.
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I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about 4th Amendment stuff to know whether they could search or not. Presumably, if they didn’t have a warrant, then whatever they found will be excluded.
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So, some cops did their job professionally and competently, and with more restraint than might be warranted with respect to a guy who threatens public officials. They may have conducted a search that was beyond the scope of their warrant, in which case the search was useless. Rodney King this isn’t. Big whoop.
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2. The making of the video. As I understand it, recording people without their knowledge and consent is a felony. So our friend should have some extra explaining to a new judge that he will also presumably not like.
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3. The webcast of the video. It seems like the woman with the anti-Conte website had zero to do with the any of the above. She was just given the recording, and posted it. I have a lot more sympathy with her, as apparently did Judge Saylor. Reilly’s issue seems to be simply that the video was posted; what I don’t understand is why he wants to make such a big deal over the non-events in the video.
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The implication of a sinister cover-up, in view of what is actually on the video, is patently absurd, unless the staties and DA are too dumb to know when they haven’t done something all that wrong.
Thanks CMD for taking the time to respond to my post. You make some good points. But ultimately I think you miss the point.
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Agreed, threatening judges can’t be tolerated. I don’t in any way condone that. But let’s look at what Pechonis actually did. And here we need some context.
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I’ve never met the man, and I am glad to be corrected if I’m getting something wrong. As I understand it, he was already in a dispute with his local police want was pursuing a complaint against a specific officer through the proper channels. Apparently this officer threatened to put a gut to Pechonis’s son’s head. Whether true or not that in no way excuses Pechonis from threatening a judge. But it does make the heavy handed response of the State Police more suspect.
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And what exactly was the threat? I don’t know what the exact words he used were (do you?) but he was in effect lashing out against a decision he didn’t agree with, saying that the judge should be discredited. He used the word “executed” which he certainly shouldn’t have. I cringe at that word as someone who is categorically opposed to capital punishment. Never the less, we do have capital punishment in this country and the word can easily be construed as referring to a way of obtaining lethal objectives through legal channels.
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This gets me to my next point. I see a problem when the well educated and essentially upper class people who post to blogs such as this one fail to understand that people who don’t have the command of the language we have are also protected by the First Amendment. Pechonis was subjected to police state tactics for having the temerity (balls, would be the colloquial term) to use the Internet to press his case. He chose his words poorly, yes, but you have to wonder if the fact that he was already in a dispute with law enforcement influenced the heavy handed way in which he was treated.
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I haven’t even gotten to Mary Jean’s role in this.
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You have to remember that she was already mixing it up with the very district attorney to whom that State Police unit is assigned. She can tell you a thing or two about how John Conte operates. It isn’t pretty and she herself has been harassed in outrageous ways. Her web site (www.conte2006.com) was taking Conte on in the true spirit of democratic (small ‘d’) discourse. He didn’t like it one bit and had already tried to in various ways to have her site taken down. Mainly by threatening her ISP, but in other ways as well.
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Now, Pechonis has a baby. The baby has a crib. And as many people do these days he has a video camera monitoring that crib. I’ve never been to his house, but this is what I am able to surmise from seeing the video. He unexpectedly captured not only his arrest but also an illegal search of his home.
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Okay, now you have cops breaking the law. What do you do with this visual information? Go to the DA? In an ideal world that’s exactly what you would do. But if you think this DA would have pursued disciplinary action I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in. I suppose you could go to the AG. But Reilly’s actions in this case prove that wouldn’t take the SP’s transgressions very seriously.
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Who is the sovereign in a democracy? That’s right, the people. That’s why we have a First Amendment. To protect publishers like Mary Jean who have the courage to publicize official wrong doing. The fact that she doesn’t own a printing press or a broadcast station, doesn’t make her any less of a publisher. She’s got a PC and an Internet connection. That’s why you, my friend, should be rallying to her defense instead of trying to undermine her.
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Hence the title of this post: Your Civil Liberties, Use em or Lose em.
Yesterday, I clicked through to his website, ro which you have linked from time to time. It is called ‘Bonuskill.” Bonus is apparently a nickname that rhymes with his name; I don’t know if there is a meaning to what comes after “bonus” other than the obvious. On the website, he notes his allegations against the officer regarding his son, does quite a bit of ranting about his general dislike of all things official, and refers to a variety of public officials as pigs or subhumans. OK, so far, so good; he is entitled to his beliefs, and entitled to voice them publicly.
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Then there is a page in which he complains that he is no longer allowed to post the names and home addresses of the various officials with whom he has his disagreements. It seems pretty clear that he had posted that information. I would regard that posting as a specific and direct threat to harm those officials and/or their families, in the same way that the “hit list” of abortion providers was (is?) a direct threat of violence. So, if these suppositions are correct, I think that this guy earned himself the privilege of being an involuntary guest of the Commonwealth.
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As for the search, I’ll assume that it was completely unauthorized. If so, the breach here seems rather mild. They didn’t excatly “swarm” through the house; it doesn’t even look like they touched anything. It was two or three guys who looked around for less than a minute. If they found anything, it would be excluded anyway. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
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With respect to the making of the tape, I’ll agree that this is far closer to the line, given the first Amendment issue. But I think the secret recording statute has been tested under the 1st Amendment before, and has survived. Is it different in this case because he was recording state action? Maybe. I guess he wants to test that theory; good for him. If he is wrong, there are consequences.
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Mrs. Jean seems to me to be far on the other side of the line, the Newt Gingrich cell-phone case notwithstanding. She has strong political beliefs to which she is entitled.
I’ll grant you everything you say about Pechonis. I agree his site isn’t one I personally would spend much time at. Whether he posted a hit list, as you suggest, I do not know. That’s the first I’ve heard of it and if so it should be stated in the arrest warrant, which apparently he’s never seen. It is a public record that might show up in the news one of these days.
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But even if I grant you your points on Pechonis, why in the name of all things holy is Reilly going after Mary Jean?
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As for the manner in which the police searched Pechonis’s home. From what I understand when Judge Saylor looked at the video and saw the police go upstairs and not come back down for several minutes he was visibly pissed off. It is NOT OKAY to conduct illegal searches and then say no harm was done because any evidence found would be excluded. That reduces policing to intimidation techniques. And isn’t intimidation what this is all about?
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Who knows if he thought of it as a hit list? I’m sure the persons listed viewed as more than mildly threatening.
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If the search was that awful, he can make a section 1983 claim, and presumably he’ll have good evidence. Doesn’t seem that awful to me, but I know zip about search and seizure.
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I have no earthly idea why Reilly targets Mrs. Jean, which was the WTF? question behind my original comment that you quoted. Never mind the 1st Amendment; even if he is right on the law, it is politically dumb to come across as a bully. Neither I, nor you, nor anyone besides Pechonis and Mrs. Jean would have ever heard of this matter otherwise.
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/Shrugs
Sounds like we can at least agree on that.
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Let’s see what happens when this gets into the next phase of the legal battle.
Just to clarify, I never listed anybody’s address. I only listed the names of the pigs(terrorists) who searched my home with weapons and without a WARRANT
And Just for the record “I did not threaten anyone” Those were not my words. That is why the case was dismissed, the D.A. and the state police had no evidence.
Dear CMD,
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You are wrong on all counts:
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1.It was never proven I threatened anyone, that’s why the case was dismissed and Judges are never at risk. You are the one that sounds like a violent nut, which makes me believe your a cop.
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It seems to me that you know nothing about the Constitution or what it stands for.
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2.When the police step into your home with or without a warrant, they give up all their rights to privacy. Feel free to ask the Supreme court about that. Its only the audio that’s illegal, and that’s if it is concealed or recorded without their knowledge – It is an old, out dated, organized crime wiretap law and does not apply to inadvertant baby cam recordings.
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3.Reilly and the State police want that video down because it clearly shows them breaking the law.
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p> And lastly: your ill informed, factless, draconian opinions show me that it is you that belongs in a cage. Please do us all a favor, and do a little research before you subject us to your Neo-Nazi view points.
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