2 New Jersey Journalists Face Criminal Charges for Publishing Information From a Police Blotter
Last September, Red Bank Green, a news site covering Red Bank, New Jersey, published information from a local police blotter, including a description of an August 31 arrest for simple assault—an arrest that was expunged the following March. When the arrestee complained to Red Bank Green, the site added a note about the expungement but declined to remove the item, since it was still an accurate report of what had happened. As a result of that decision, Red Bank Green reporter Brian Donohue and the site’s publisher, Kenny Katzgrau, face criminal charges.
“Prosecuting journalists for declining to censor themselves is alarming and blatantly unconstitutional, as is ordering the press to unpublish news reports,” says Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which first noted the case on June 27. “Any prosecutors who would even think to bring such charges either don’t know the first thing about the Constitution they’re sworn to uphold, or don’t care. Failure to immediately correct and apologize for this inexplicable error would put prosecutors’ competence in doubt and warrant investigation of whether they should keep their law licenses.”
Donohue and Katzgrau are charged with violating a state law that applies to “any person who reveals to another the existence of an arrest, conviction or related legal proceeding with knowledge that the records and information pertaining thereto have been expunged or sealed.” Violators, who are classified as “disorderly person[s],” face fines up to $200.
“Publication of truthful information on matters of public significance cannot be punished unless it involves a state interest of the highest order,” Bruce Rosen, an attorney representing the two journalists, wrote in a July 11 motion to dismiss the charges. “Moreover, information concerning the arrest was published prior to the expungement, and there is no requirement in law that it be removed from the publisher’s website simply because an expungement [has] taken place….The issuance of probable cause in this matter is plain legal error, this prosecution is unconstitutional and in fact unfathomable, and the matter should be promptly dismissed.”
As Stern notes, the charges
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