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donal brown

Federal court scuttles subpoenas for two years of news coverage of murder investigation and court sessions

donal brown March 22, 2010

A federal judge in North Carolina rejected a request from the defense in a murder trial to force the media to produce public records of news coverage of the case holding that that would shift the burden for the defense from the suspect to the media. -db The Newsroom Law Blog March 18, 2010 By Elizabeth Spainhour North Carolina media organizations won a significant victory in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of

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Open government gadfly snares $3.5 million for San Francisco

donal brown March 19, 2010

San Francisco’s notable open government advocate is sometimes thought to provide an ordeal for government agencies with his voluminous public record requests, but he compensated them richly recently when he discovered that Morgan Stanley failed to pay the City a transfer tax of $3.5 million. -db San Francisco Bay Guardian March 18, 2010 By Rebecca Bowe Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman is sometimes counted as a thorn in the side of city government agencies due to

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Student First Amendment rights get lost in school’s policing of off-campus postings on social media

donal brown March 18, 2010

A blogger from the Citizen Media Law Project argues that school authorities are over reaching in many instances in punishing students for off-campus speech. In many instances the speech has no disruptive effect on the school or falls short of creating a hostile school environment. -db Citizen Media Law Project Commentary March 17, 2010 By Justin Silverman A freshman at Oak Grove High School in Missouri used Facebook last month to vent about another student: “Wow,

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Federal court blocks District Attorney from prosecuting girls for appearing in racy photos on cellphones

donal brown March 18, 2010

Without resolving all the First Amendment issues in the case over whether girls could be punished for “sexting”, a federal appeals court blocked the District Attorney from initiating criminal charges and requiring the girls to participate in an education program and to write an essay about why their sexting was wrong. -db The New York Times March 17, 2010 By Tamar Lewin In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with “sexting” — the transmission

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Southern California: Appeals court rules against student for Web site hate speech

donal brown March 18, 2010

A California private school student lost an appeal of a decision against him for death threats he sent to a classmate on the classmate’s Web site. The court said the speech was not protected under the First Amendment since it conveyed serious expression to inflict bodily harm. -db Courthouse News Service March 17, 2010 By Avery Fellow (CN) – A California private-school student who posted death threats on a classmate’s Web site isn’t shielded from hate-crime

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