Is it a coincidence that on Monday Blue Mass Group readers learned that Leominster mom Mary Jean won her case in federal court and then on Thursday the T&G’s Richard Nangle brings it to a wider readership? Maybe. Here are excerpts from today’s story:
June 28, 2007
Judge Upholds Woman’s Right to Post Video Online
By Richard Nangle TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
rnangle@telegram.com
A federal judge’s ruling that a Leominster woman could continue to post a video of a state police arrest on her Web site has been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a case that attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The case moved to the First Circuit last summer with then-Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly contending that U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV erred when he extended a restraining order that bars state police from forcing Mary T. Jean to take the videotaped arrest of Paul Pechonis of Northboro off her www.conte2006.com Web site. Had Ms. Jean been convicted of unlawfully posting the video, she would have faced up to two years in prison. …
… Ms. Jean posted the video on her Web site in January and state police ordered her to remove it in a Feb. 14 letter. State police sent Ms. Jean a letter that read in part, “Be advised that this secret, unauthorized audio/video recording is in violation of M.G.L. c.272, 99 and subject to prosecution as a felony.”
Read the whole story here. Big up to Nangle for capturing the wider legal significance of the case.
