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BOSTON -- Posting false advertisements online can be considered criminal harassment unprotected by the First Amendment, according to a Supreme Judicial Court decision Tuesday, which upheld the conviction of two people who directed "pranks" against an Andover lawmaker.

Rep. James Lyons, a Republican, was not yet a member of the House in 2008 when William and Gail Johnson enlisted their friend Gerald Colton to use personal information about Lyons and his wife to harass them, according to the SJC. Lyons had opposed the couple's plans to develop property abutting their home.

Colton advertised free golf carts at the Lyons' home, posted another ad offering "my late son's" motorcycle for sale with Lyons' phone number, and sent Lyons a message that said, "Remember, if you aren't miserable, I aint happy! Let's Play." William Johnson also committed the crime of falsely reporting Lyons to the Department of Children and Families for alleged child abuse.

In a ruling written by Justice Robert Cordy and released Tuesday morning, the SJC denied an appeal from the Johnsons and found the defendants' speech was not protected by the First Amendment. Cordy said the case is the court's first to consider the "type of conduct at issue here."

The case involves the use of the classified ad website Craigslist to steer unwitting people against a target.

The SJC found that though the "methods were indirect" the phony posts were "intended solely" to cause strangers to contact the Lyons.

"Where the sole purpose of the defendants' speech was to further their endeavor to intentionally harass the Lyonses, such speech is not protected by the First Amendment," the SJC wrote.

"I thought it was a very well written opinion, and my wife and I are extremely grateful for the Supreme Court's decision in this case," Lyons told the News Service. "These people literally tortured my wife, my boys and myself, and to this day shown not one ounce of remorse."

Lyons, who was elected in 2010, said the Johnsons are no longer his neighbors and said both were incarcerated as a result of their convictions. The husband was sentenced to serve 18 months imprisonment and his wife was sentenced to serve six months, according to the SJC.

Lyons praised the police investigation that identified the culprits and said William Johnson pled guilty to the additional crime of witness intimidation against Lyons and his sons after the arrest.

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SJC: Harassing not free speech

Right to bear arms is God-given

To the Editor:

Suppose that in order to exercise your constitutionally enumerated First Amendment right to free speech you had to: 1. Pay to attend a training course. 2. Pay to take a test about the contents of that course. 3. Pay a fee to the government for a license to exercise that right, and finally, 4. Get permission from some government official to acquire a license (that you must carry while exercising the right) that states you have the right of free speech. Does this sound fair? Thankfully, none of this is necessary to exercise the right of free speech.

That list DOES outline the requirements necessary to exercise your rights as enumerated in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. In addition, the Second Amendment states specifically that this right shall not be infringed. No other of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution has that statement. As noted in the first paragraph, these four items are the requirements (as stated by laws) that are necessary to exercise our Second Amendment right. In my opinion, these laws infringe on our right to keep and bear arms. In my opinion, these laws infringe on the right as defined by the Second Amendment of the Constitution and therefore are unconstitutional.

Note also that these rights are not granted by the Constitution, but are listed only to enumerate God-given human rights. Any right that is permitted by law may be revoked by another law. The First and Second Amendments state rights that are NOT permitted by law but instead are God-given rights.

Alan ONeill

Columbia

Painted concrete walls necessary?

To the Editor:

For some reason, paving unnavigable sidewalks in downtown Sonora is far less important than painted concrete walls on Mono Way. Never mind that people have difficulty walking, therefore shopping and spending money, at local businesses downtown.

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Letters to the Editor for Dec. 23, 2014

Without The First Amendment (B3 -- Tyler S., Cael A., Clinton M.)

By: cgmsbmcgurk

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Without The First Amendment (B3 -- Tyler S., Cael A., & Clinton M.) - Video

The Supreme Court has stepped into the center of a divisive issue: whether, consistent with the First Amendment, states that elect some or all of their judges may prohibit the candidates from directly soliciting campaign funds.

The case of Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, scheduled for oral argument on January 20, 2015, will test how far the Supreme Court is willing to go in pushing the boundaries of the First Amendments guarantee of freedom of speech and throwing off the restraints of campaign finance regulation.

The case has important implications for law students interested in First Amendment, legal and judicial ethics, political law, and the governance of the judiciaries throughout the United States.

According to both sides in the dispute, thirty-nine states elect at least some of their . Over half of those states at least twenty have adopted a variation of the American Bar Associations Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which includes a provision that prohibits candidates for judicial office, incumbent judges and challengers from directly soliciting campaign funds.

The issue is not whether judges and their challengers may raise campaign funds. There seems to be general agreement that even judicial candidates need campaign committees with sufficient resources to mount an election effort. Rather, the question is whether the candidates themselves should be able to solicit funds, which is often an effective way of promoting name recognition and raising the cash necessary to run a campaign.

Federal appeals courts and state supreme courts are deeply split about whether restrictions on direct solicitation by candidates are permissible under the First Amendment. According to the petition filed in the Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Seventh Circuits and the state supreme courts of Oregon, Florida, and Arkansas have upheld ethical rules restricting judicial candidate solicitation; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have invalidated similar rules. The Florida Bar agreed with this description of the disagreement and, although it prevailed in the Florida Supreme Court, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case because of the split. That divide is what the Supreme Court will try to resolve.

The case presents a conflict between the need to protect the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary and the role of the First Amendment in protecting political speech from government interference. At the heart of that conflict is the volatile question, one that has been of considerable interest to the current Supreme Court, of how campaign funds fit into the framework of political speech.

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a restriction on speech in judicial campaigns, finding that a rule which prohibited candidates from announcing positions on controversial issues violated the First Amendment. That ruling, Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, involved political statements rather than campaign funds, but it brought judicial elections under the same First Amendment framework that applies to other political speech.

More recently, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court in the name of freedom of speech has expanded the ability of corporations and unions to spend funds directly in elections in Citizens United v. FEC and less than a year ago invalidated limits Congress placed on the overall amount that individuals may spend in a two-year federal election cycle in McCutcheon v. FEC.

The case now before the Court arose in a Florida judicial election. In 2009, Lanell Williams-Yulee ran for a position as judge in Hillsborough County, which is in the Tampa area. She sent out a general fundraising letter which she signed herself. When the Florida Bar filed a complaint against her, Williams-Yulee noted that the Florida ethical rule referred to elections between competing candidates, and since she had no opponent when she sent the letter, she did not think the rule applied. A state referee appointed to decide the issue said her mistake did not excuse the violation of the rule and suggested she be issued a reprimand and pay the costs of the disciplinary proceeding.

Originally posted here:
SCOTUS for law students: Financing judicial elections

December 20 and 22, 2014, 10:00 a.m. Contents The Price of Free Speech What the University Owes Students The Values of Free Speech and a Proposal Pictures of Presidents "The Interview" Trailer and Pictures of "Art" Quotations from . . . President Barack Obama The Guardians of Peace (the Hackers' Threats) Sony Statement UI President Sally Mason Statement UI AAUP President Katherine Tachau Message First Amendment Alternatives to Law -- and Censorship: Professor Lawrence Lessig Mason Williams The University of Iowa should consider developing a course for entering undergraduates first semester that exposes them to the values underlying the First Amendment, the history of protest movements in this country and on this very campus.

-- Nicholas Johnson

The Price of Free Speech

So it is with free speech its a good idea, and also the law. With two distinctions from the law of gravity.

(1) The law doesnt always apply.

Although the First Amendment to our Constitution merely forbids Congress to make a law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, the courts interpret congress to mean all government action things done by city councils, school boards, and yes, state universities like the University of Iowa. But that means the First Amendment gives you no protection from restrictions on your speech at the family dinner table, or in the corporate workplace.

Courts also permit governments to restrict freedom of speech in a variety of contexts how companies can advertise and label their products and new stock offerings, restrictions on sound trucks blasting messages throughout suburban neighborhoods after midnight, and a prohibition on airline passengers telling jokes as they pass through TSA security.

(2) And even when free speech is legally protected, its not free.

Speech is free like food is free in a Michelin four-star Paris restaurant. You tell the waitperson what you want, its presented before you, and you eat it. Only after the final cup of coffee, when youre preparing to leave, do you pay the price.

This speak-now-pay-later quality of free speech made the news recently from Iowa and California.

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Threats and Sensibilities: Presidents Kim, Lynton and Mason