BOSTON — from www.patriotledger.com – The far-reaching effects of the Internet on the First Amendment are under scrutiny as the state’s highest court considers the content of cases being streamed live from Quincy District Court.
The Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments Tuesday regarding National Public Radio station WBUR’s airing, on opencourt.us, of a court hearing held for a man charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old girl and forcing her into prostitution.
Since May, WBUR has been streaming arraignments and other court proceedings as part of a pilot program that gives online viewers a front-row seat to see the legal system at work.
The office of Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey later objected to a dangerousness hearing in the prostitution case being available on the Internet.
The matter was brought to Supreme Judicial Court Justice Margot Botsford, who held a hearing and then referred arguments to the full court.
Assistant Norfolk County District Attorney Varsha Kukafka said the young girl in the case would be victimized again if information that could identify her showed up on the court website.
“It’s a laboratory. It’s an experiment in the courtroom,” Kukafka said of the WBUR program.
“Once the judge lets it be recorded, he gives up all authority in his courtroom. There has never been a project like this. Real people are having their lives affected.”
Kukafka also claimed that Judge Mark Coven [pictured], the Quincy court’s presiding justice, abused his discretion in failing to find that posting the recording on the Internet would harm the alleged victim’s right to privacy and put her safety at risk.
In a brief filed with the high court, Kukafka called into question Judge Coven’s contention about the public’s right to know all aspects of the case and “his enthusiasm for an experiment in technological communication to eclipse the rights of a child who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by strangers over a two-week period.”
WBUR attorney Lawrence Elswit said the website’s producers have fully cooperated with the Quincy court and readily addressed concerns such as agreeing not to identify the sexual assault victim and redacting harmful information.
“If we didn’t comply with the process, Judge Coven could pull the plug,” Elswit said.
Elswit wrote in his brief that a judge does not have the authority to issue a prior restraint prohibiting the publication of lawfully obtained facts from a proceeding after opening up a courtroom to the public and media.
“There is no easy remedy,” Elswit told the justices. “If the information is out there, you can’t restrain the publishing of it.”
Prosecutors allege that Norman Barnes, 28, of Boston kidnapped the 15-year-old girl at an MBTA station, held her captive, and forced her to perform sexual acts and have sex with numerous men in motel rooms in Quincy, Danvers and Dorchester from May 7 to May 18 of this year. Barnes was recently indicted on a number of charges in connection with the case.