The Freedom Bulletin

Here’s a story from a few days ago about a Malden, MA man whose gun just may have saved his life against two robbers:

“The mother of a Malden man who survived being struck with four bullets in a gunfight that left the other two men dead said yesterday that she is grateful her son was armed with his licensed handgun at the time.

‘He had it on him. Why, I don’t know. His friends said he’s never had it on him. But I am very thankful he did. Otherwise it would have been him killed,’ said Kathleen Becerra, 47.”

Read the rest at the Boston Herald.

In honor of 9/11, I give you a truly magnificent speech by Ron Paul. He gave this speech on May 22, 2007 to address the erosion of our liberties, especially after 9/11, and the difference between blind obedience to government policies and true patriotism, which sometimes entails fighting back against government policies that destroy liberty.

“The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power.

The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.

Peaceful, nonviolent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., achieved great political successes by practicing nonviolence, and yet they suffered physically at the hands of the state. But whether the resistance against government tyrants is nonviolent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.

True patriotism today has gotten a bad name, at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor are routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have been.”

Read the rest here at LewRockwell.com.

Thomas Mortimer IV – accused of killing his wife, Laura Mortimer, his mother-in-law, Ellen Stone, and his children, Thomas V (4) and Charlotte (2) – wants to keep certain details about the case against him sealed. Today at 2:00 in courtroom 530 of the Middlesex Superior Court, lawyers for Mortimer and for the state argued about a defense motion to seal the statement of the case.

Actually, Mortimer’s defense lawyer, Denise Regan, and Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch reached a compromise prior to today, agreeing to redact four lines from the statement of the case and make the rest of it public. The four lines (or sentences – it’s unclear which) in question are on page 7 of the 9-page statement and begin with the word “I” and end with the word “myself.”

Lynch maintained that there was “nothing inaccurate, untruthful, or misleading” in the original, un-redacted statement of the case, but she agreed to release only the edited version in order to protect the well-being of third parties.

Funny side note: Around this time, during a bench conference, Mortimer, who was quiet and well-behaved and wearing no restraints of any sort, was led out of the courtroom by officers. A minute later they brought him back in wearing handcuffs and leg shackles. I guess the officers forgot to put cuffs on him at first?

Despite the prosecution and defense’s agreement, the judge, Elizabeth Fahey, was skeptical that even the four lines should be impounded, and she asked Regan to explain.

Regan, as she did at last week’s hearing, argued that Mortimer’s right to a fair trial outweighs the public’s interest in having the information. ”Mr. Mortimer’s right to a fair trial is inarguably an important government interest,” she said. According to Regan, the public does not have a fundamental right to the information contained in a statement of the case. There is no rule requiring one to be filed, they are filed regularly only in Middlesex and Suffolk Counties, and the content of the four lines in question “is not information that the public needs to have to evaluate the proceedings in this case.” She said that the content of those four lines was “highly inflammatory” and “upsetting” and “would seriously impair the defendant’s right to a fair trial” and ”prejudice a vast array of jurors against him.” She pointed out that the case has garnered national publicity, including a People magazine article, so a change of venue would not remedy this prejudice. Additionally, it would put Mortimer in danger from other inmates at the Billerica House of Correction and would be ”unduly stressful” to his relatives. Even if the public had a First Amendment right to the full, original statement of the case, which Regan argues they do not, this right is not as important as Mortimer’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.

Timothy Madden, a lawyer for the Boston Globe and Associated Press, spoke briefly. He argued that nothing he’s heard suggests Mortimer’s right to a fair trial is at risk, and the defense can always weed out biased jurors through the voir dire process.

Judge Fahey, took the motion under advisement, which means that the mysterious four lines will remain unknown until she makes her decision. If she does agree to seal them, it is unclear for how long.

The judge also addressed a different issue today: whether Mortimer should have a taxpayer-funded defense. After his arraignment last week, he was interviewed by the probation department in the presence of his lawyer and filled out a short form about his finances, where he mentioned an IRA (containing $13,000) and two cars. Later, however, he was ordered to fill out a longer form when his lawyer was not present, and he disclosed the existence of a college fund for his children, which contained $25,000.

To settle this question, Judge Fahey decided to question Mortimer himself. After standing at the defense table, raising his right hand as best he could, and being sworn in, Mortimer said, in response to the judge’s questions, that neither he nor his wife has ever owned any real estate, and that he lived in an apartment in South Boston for “approximately 18 months” before moving into his mother-in-law’s Winchester home. In a quiet, polite voice, he said that he told the probation department about all of his bank accounts, except “there was one bank account that we had but we closed it down.” He said that he omitted the college fund on the short form because it was in his wife’s name, not his own: “Last week I was only asked about my personal accounts, so that’s the information I gave.”

Regan argued that Mortimer should only have to pay $10,000 because he “is incarcerated and has no income” and “the cost of hiring counsel in a first-degree murder case is extremely high.” She objected to the fact that Mortimer had filled out the long form without her knowledge or presence and said that he was nervous when he filled out the short form and was not trying to deceive anyone. The college funds, she added, may end up going to Laura’s relatives and not to Mortimer.

Judge Fahey rejected most of Regan’s arguments and ruled that Mortimer is “indigent but able to contribute” and must pay $40,000 toward the cost of his defense.

The next court date will be September 27. Stay tuned.

Further coverage from the Associated Press, Winchester Star, Boston Herald, and Winchester Patch.

As you probably know by now if you haven’t been living under a rock, Craigslist decided to take down its “adult services” section in response to pressure from 17 states’ attorneys general. In the aftermath of Philip Markoff‘s suicide, one of the most vocal critics of the site’s adult services section has been Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. She also wants to repeal the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which shields websites from liability for things that third parties post.

In my opinion, Craigslist was not legally or morally obligated to remove its “adult” ads, and the attorneys general are acting like a bunch of paternalistic, sexist bullies.

First of all, the CDA is a good law. In addition to protecting Craigslist from liability for thinly-veiled prostitution ads, the CDA also protects sites like Youtube from being sued when people post copyright-infringing videos, and forums from being sued for users’ defamatory comments. This principle just makes sense. People are responsible for their own actions, so they should be held responsible for all of and only what they post themselves. For large, popular websites, it is unreasonable to expect administrators to be able to monitor everything that gets posted.

Additionally, the attitude of Coakley and the other attorneys general is sexist and insulting. In a joint letter, they write about the “women and children who will continue to be victimized.” Although probably not common, it’s certainly possible for men to be forced into prostitution, or even for women to be the perpetrators.

Furthermore, the attorneys general fail to distinguish between prostitution, an activity that is illegal but which some people choose to participate in, and human trafficking, which is when people are forced into prostitution. Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal, for example, said: “Prostitution is not a victimless crime. Human trafficking results in tragedies to children and others.” I don’t necessarily think prostitution should be legal, but everyone should recognize that there is a difference between choosing to do something and being forced to do it. Blumenthal seems unable to tell the difference.

Finally, the bullying by the attorneys general makes Craigslist, and by extension the Internet, worse. I don’t regularly use Craigslist, but it has a certain appeal that comes from its simplicity, freedom, and anonymity. In the age of cookies, behavioral tracking, and intrusive personalization, it is great that a site exists where people can simply post almost anything they want with little or no moderation. Last year, in response to pressure from 39 attorneys general, Craigslist began to require personally-identifying information for adult services ads. Although this might make the site safer, it detracts from the anarchy that makes Craigslist what it is.

In short, Craigslist is not doing anything wrong by merely failing to remove illegal ads that third parties post. In the vast majority of cases, people who post ads or respond to them do so because they have considered the risks involved and have decided that the benefits are worth it. To take away an option from people merely because it is dangerous insults them by implying that they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and harms them by denying them the ability to do something that they want to do. Although a small number of people are forced into prostitution against their will, and the existence of Craigslist might make their victimization slightly easier, not all prostitution involves force, and not all adult services ads involve prostitution. It is never okay to punish many people for the actions of a few.

In the eloquent words of the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper: “The cost to free speech in the AGs’ badgering of Craigslist vastly outweighs the infinitesimal crime-prevention benefit.”

I wish our attorneys general would stop bullying harmless websites like Craigslist, and start standing up for people’s liberty against oppressive federal laws like, say, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment or the health care non-reform law.

From the Boston Globe…

“Now, an effort is underway to develop a new generation of blood-alcohol detection devices that work with just the touch of a button or require no driver interaction whatsoever, automatically analyzing the breath of anyone who gets behind the wheel.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, an auto manufacturers group, are funding a $10 million study to create the high-tech instruments, which they hope will become a standard feature in cars and trucks, much like seat belts and air bags.”

Am I the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea? Why should innocent people be forced to prove that they are sober in order to use their cars?

That the devices won’t require you to actually blow into them does not change the fact that every time you get into your car, you are being monitored and controlled, forced to prove that you are fit to drive before being allowed to use your own car.

In order to have a life worth living, people need to have control over their own decisions. They need time to be alone, watched and monitored by no one but themselves. Thanks to the current medical culture, people forfeit their medical autonomy nearly every time they set foot in a doctor’s office. If you take medication, thanks to the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, a doctor monitors and controls that part of your life. Thanks to behaviorally-targeted advertising, people can no longer use the Internet in privacy. The TSA is gradually making it so that people cannot fly on airplanes without their naked bodies being examined. We should all be fighting to expand the sphere of our lives that we ourselves control, not to further shrink freedom by increasing societal control over individuals’ lives. A human life is not a mere part of society but something that should be controlled and monitored only by the person whose life it is. If you always put the greater good above individual rights, then everything people do, every moment of our lives, will be monitored, supervised, examined, and controlled by others. If that’s the case, everyone might as well be dead.

According to the article, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations ”support research into making the devices palatable for the mainstream.”

Well, the only way these devices could be palatable to people who love liberty is if they don’t exist. Maybe MADD should rename their organization “Mothers Against Freedom.”

Thomas J. Mortimer IV was arraigned today in Middlesex Superior Court, pleading not guilty and agreeing to be held without bail. I attended today’s court proceedings, which began at around 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom 440 at the Woburn office park that is the courthouse.

Clerk Magistrate Michael Sullivan presided over Mortimer’s arraignment. Two prosecutors, Adrienne Lynch and John McEvoy, represented the state, while defense attorney Denise Regan represented Mortimer. Many relatives and/or friends of the alleged victims sat in the front two rows, but surprisingly there were only a few reporters.

A court clerk read the indictment against Mortimer, charging that he “did assault and beat” and “by such assault and beating did kill and murder” his wife Laura Stone Mortimer (41), his mother-in-law Ragna E. Stone (64), his son Thomas Joseph David Mortimer V (4), and his daughter Charlotte Ellen Sandra Mortimer (2). Four times the clerk asked, “Mr. Mortimer, how do you plead to this indictment?” and four times he replied “not guilty.”

While all this happened, Mortimer was in a little room adjacent to the courtroom, but he could easily be seen and participate in the proceedings through an opening in the wall. His dark hair was shorter than at his district court arraignment, and he was wearing a light blue shirt and reddish-brown tie. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. Most of the time he somberly looked straight ahead and down, never glancing toward the gallery or his wife’s family members. As he pled not guilty, he spoke somewhat quietly and seemed a little nervous and hesitant at first. He didn’t show much emotion but was friendly and polite with his lawyer, nodding and smiling when she spoke privately to him.

After Mortimer pled, Lynch requested that he be held without bail because of the nature of the crimes and his alleged flight to Western Massachusetts, and she also revealed a few new facts about the alleged murders. According to Lynch, the deaths took place between 9:10 p.m. on June 14 and 7:10 a.m. on June 15. Mortimer allegedly composed a confession letter between 11:16 p.m. and 3:19 a.m., when he shut down his computer. The letter was found in digital form on the computer, as well as two printed copies.

At 7:10 a.m. on the 15th, Mortimer called his workplace and his son’s day care to say that neither of them would be in. Later he answered his wife’s phone when her sister, Debra Sochat, called and told her that Laura would not be able to call her back for a long time. At some point that day he threw his and Laura’s phones away at a gas station on route 113.

On June 16, the bodies were found during a well-being check of the home at 2 Windsong Land in Winchester. The next day, Mortimer’s car battery died and he was arrested in Bernardston.

Regan did not contest Lynch’s request for no bail, so that was the end of the arraignment. She patted Mortimer’s shoulder before he was led away by officers.

But that was not the end of today’s court proceedings. After the arraignment, at 11:00, a hearing was held on a defense motion to seal the statement of the case, a document filed by the prosecution to summarize the allegations. This took place in the same courtroom but before a different judge, Thomas Billings.

Regan argued that the statement of the case should be temporarily impounded until the next hearing, on September 9, to give her time to make a written argument for it to be impounded permanently. She said that the last five pages of the nine-page document were “inflammatory” and that their release would be unfair to Mortimer and “detrimental to his right to a fair trial.” She added that no rule of court requires a statement of the case. “It has no bearing on the legal proceedings in the court,” she said.

Lynch, on the other hand, argued that “the defendant can’t pick and choose which information the commonwealth can present to the court.” She pointed out that prosecutors are required to file a statement of the case at arraignment.

Judge Billings then asked if anyone in the gallery wanted to be heard, and reporters John Ellement of the Boston Globe and Laurel Sweet of the Boston Herald both stood up and argued against impounding the statement of the case, saying that releasing it is customary and would not taint the jury pool because the trial will likely not take place until at least a year from now.

But Regan argued that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial should win out over the media’s First Amendment right to report on the case and the public’s right to the information. She was surprised, she said, at the length and detail of the statement that she was shown today.

Judge Billings decided to impound the statement of the case until the 9th. The defense bears a heavy burden to show that the statement should be sealed, he said, but he is willing to give Regan a chance.

So the next court date for this case will be Thursday, September 9, at 2:00 p.m. in courtroom 630.

More from the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Associated Press, and Winchester Star.

Another day, and more arguments in the hearing on Gary Sampson’s 2255 petition for a new trial. I wasn’t there for the entire time, but today seemed to feature Sampson’s least persuasive arguments. The judge, Mark Wolf, actually said, “Mr. Sampson’s counsel has done a good job. They put the weakest arguments towards the end.”

Here are a few of today’s apparently not so good arguments by Sampson’s defense team:

First, Sampson’s lawyers argued that his trial lawyers failed to investigate the effects of Depakote on his demeanor, or to offer testimony to explain his demeanor to the jury. According to various news reports, Sampson had a “flat affect,” showed no remorse or emotion, and looked bored during his trial. Sampson’s lawyers today argued that the medication caused this behavior, and that his trial lawyers should have called an expert witness to explain this to the jury. Prosecutors, however, argued that Sampson was only taking Depakote for his headaches, that his bipolar disorder and not the medication caused his unsympathetic demeanor, and that despite the medication he did show emotion, crying when the death penalty verdict was announced and yelling at officers in jail. Judge Wolf indicated informally that this claim might deserve further arguments and might not be summarily dismissed.

Sampson’s attorneys also claimed that the jury had seen the victims’ bloody shirts, which would be prejudicial. Judge Wolf, who was also the trial judge, excluded the shirts, but one might have been briefly visible during a doctor’s testimony. Sampson’s then-lawyers failed to move for a curative instruction or a mistrial.

Additionally, Sampson’s team argued that his trial lawyers failed to adequately investigate and develop evidence of his brain damage by conducting more detailed testing. Prosecutors tried to shoot down this claim, praising the trial attorneys’ good lawyering and thorough testing.

On Monday, Sampson’s lawyers presented what the judge likely considers their strongest arguments – that his trial attorneys failed to present enough evidence of his background, mental illness, and brain damage. In order for Sampson to get a new trial, all of these alleged mistakes by the trial lawyers must add up to actual incompetence, and there must be a ”reasonable probability” that if it weren’t for this incompetence, the jury would have reached a different verdict, namely life in prison instead of the death penalty.

Tomorrow I probably won’t have a Sampson update because I’m going to watch Thomas Mortimer’s arraignment. I’m not sure how long these hearings will go on or when the judge will issue his ruling. This sure has been a busy week for trials .