Mediaboss Marketing

The Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation has a new leader. Pamela Marsh took over this month from the retiring Barbara Petersen, who will stick around for a while as a consultant.

Marsh is the former U-S Attorney for the Northern District of Florida. She has more than 20 years of legal experience and is a shareholder at the Ausley McMullen law firm in Tallahassee.

Listen to the interview with Pamela Marsh.

She says her new job shares some similarities with her time as both a private and government attorney. "I will still be helping others with the law and interpreting the law and thinking about applying the law to different sets of facts," Marsh says. "There's a lot of looking at new legislation, thinking of how bills will affect the public and change the law."

In the current political climate, Marsh says it's more important than ever for journalists and news consumers to dig deeper and rely on evidence rather than short sound bites. "That's what our public records law and our open government meetings laws really facilitate."

She says "we have to push back" against those who refuse to acknowledge the truth.

We've become so divided because I think the facts don't mean anything. ~Pamela Marsh

"We've become so divided because I think the facts don't mean anything, and if you say something three times, somebody is going to believe it," Marsh says. "That's why education is so important; real solid professional journalism is so important. If you just want to have an opinion, that's not the same thing."

Marsh is jumping into her new role with the legislative session just weeks away. Petersen will help her navigate these first few months, especially with more efforts at the Capitol to limit transparency. "We are currently looking at about 40 bills that either affect the public records law or the Sunshine Law in some way or have something to do with the First Amendment," Marsh says. She'll also promote membership in the First Amendment Foundation, which is free to students and open to anyone.

Originally posted here:
New Leader Of First Amendment Foundation Ready To Tackle Public Records And Fake News - WFSU

First Amendment

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 17, 2019, 2:17 pm CST

Image from Shutterstock.com.

A federal appeals court decision criticized for its potential to chill protests is no longer unanimous.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans had unanimously ruled in April that a Louisiana police officer could sue the organizer of a Black Lives Matter protest for a serious injury caused when a different protester threw a heavy object, the Advocate had reported at the time.

On Monday, one of the panel members, Judge Don Willett, wrote that he had a judicial change of heart and issued a partial dissent. How Appealing and the Volokh Conspiracy noted the Dec. 16 opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, the Washington Post reported Friday. Civil liberties lawyers have criticized the 5th Circuit decision for its potential to chill protests and impact activists First Amendment rights.

Willett, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said he had changed his mind on the First Amendment issue.

The officers complaint is skeletal, and it does not plausibly assert that [organizer DeRay] Mckesson forfeited First Amendment protection by inciting violence, Willett said. He cited NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., a 1982 Supreme Court decision. The case held that the First Amendment protects fiery words that dont provoke or incite acts of violence, Willett said.

Before reaching the First Amendment issue, Willett said, the 5th Circuit should ask the Louisiana Supreme Court whether Louisiana law imposed a duty on the protest organizer to protect the officer from the criminal acts of others.

If theres no negligence, theres no case, Willett wrote. And if theres no case, theres no need to fret about the First Amendment.

But Willett did consider the First Amendment ramifications with references to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, tea party protests by American colonists, and civil rights marches by Martin Luther King Jr.

Willett wrote: Dr. Kings last protest march was in March 1968, in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers. It was prelude to his assassination a week later, the day after his Ive Been to the Mountaintop speech. Dr. Kings hallmark was nonviolent protest, but as he led marchers down Beale Street, some young men began breaking storefront windows. The police moved in, and violence erupted, harming peaceful demonstrators and youthful looters alike. Had Dr. King been sued, either by injured police or injured protesters, I cannot fathom that the Constitution he praised as magnificenta promissory note to which every American was to fall heirwould countenance his personal liability.

The officer suing Mckesson had alleged that he did nothing to calm Baton Rouge protesters throwing water bottles and led them onto the highway where he was injured. The protesters were responding to the July 2016 shooting death of Alton Sterling, who was shot by officers investigating a report of a man with a gun.

The 5th Circuit majority responded to Willett in its new opinion, which held that Mckessons speech was not necessarily protected by the First Amendment.

Mckesson should have known that leading the demonstrators onto a busy highway was most nearly certain to provoke a confrontation between police and the mass of demonstrators, yet he ignored the foreseeable danger to officers, bystanders and demonstrators, said the majority opinion by Judge E. Grady Jolly.

Claiborne Hardware doesnt insulate Mckesson from liability for his own negligent conduct simply because he intended to communicate a message, Jolly said.

View post:
5th Circuit judge has 'judicial change of heart' in case that could chill protests - ABA Journal

Should these witnesses testify, they can resist certain questionsfor example by invoking executive privilege or their own Fifth Amendment rightsand they would surely insert do not recalls into the record, but they would face consequences for lying. The president often characterizes his public comments on pending investigations as freedom of speech or fighting back, but his aides have no First Amendment right to lie under oath, and perjury is never excused by self-defense. As the Supreme Court stated in the Bryson case 50 years ago: Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Governments right to ask questionslying is not one of them.

Brenda Wineapple: How to conduct a trial in the Senate

In many religious and moral traditions, bearing false witness constitutes the most serious form of deception and occasions the most dire punishment. Even if the solemn nature of an oath no longer instills fear of eternal damnation, breaking that oath does warrant a felony charge. Among the 4,000-plus federal crimes, at least 300 address various forms of deception. Perjurywillfully making a false statement under oath about facts material to an official proceedingis the most significant of the federal dishonesty offenses. Perjury goes way back: In legal texts from the ancient world and medieval codes, it was punishable by death. In the 16th-century common law that is the precedent for Americas criminal statute, perjury was declared infamous and detestable. Since the First Congress, in 1790, lying under oath has been proscribed under federal law, and all 50 states now have statutes criminalizing perjury.

The elements required to prove perjury are stringent and specific. Under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1621, prosecutors must demonstrate that the sworn statement is false, that the lie is willful and deliberate, and that the statement could influence the proceeding. Cases can be difficult to prosecute and prove, because perjury requires clear and direct questions and brazenly untrue responses. The law does not prohibit trivial falsehoods or carelessness, statements that are misleading but literally true, or statements that are incomplete and merely evasive.

The general perjury statute covers false evidence presented to tribunals other than courts that act with the authority of law, including Congress. Should witnesses lie to Congress, they could laterup to five years later, given the statute of limitationsface a criminal indictment in court. Impeachment proceedings have intersected with perjury charges before. Both President Richard Nixons chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, and his attorney general, John Mitchell, served time in prison for perjury committed before the Senate Watergate Committee. And one of the articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton arose from his testimony to the grand jury and sworn deposition in Paula Joness civil suit.

Continue reading here:
Why Republicans Are Refusing to Testify - The Atlantic

PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. Hillary Clinton couldnt have picked a more historic day to be surrounded by some of her most ardent fans on home turf.

As the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump, Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump despite winning the popular vote, took the stage at Pace University, just four miles away from her home in Chappaqua.

The House voted on Wednesday to impeach Trump for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

It is a story of abuse of power, using the office of the president to further not the nation's objectives but his own personal political objectives," Clinton said at the event moderated by singer Vanessa Williams. "The facts are not at dispute. This is not a he said-she said. This is what happened.

"It's really important to me that I do everything I can and make sure that we retire the incumbent regardless of what happens."

What's next?All eyes on the Senate after House votes to impeach Donald Trump

Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, were at Pace to discuss their new book, The Book of Gutsy Women.

Lori Gowen Morton brought her daughters Nora, 12, and Kelly, 9, to the event to listen to the Clintons.

I find it particularly satisfying today to be in the company of strong women celebrating other strong women, she said.I want my daughters to grow up with the confidence and resilience to pursue their own big ideas and overcome challenges and failures that come along the way.

Actress and singer Vanessa Williams interviews Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Pace University in Pleasantville Dec 18, 2019. The event was held to promote the book The Book of Gutsy Women that Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have just published.(Photo: Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

Another attendee, Frank Cosentino, said he was curious to hear Clinton's take on today's politics.

She won the popular vote by 3 million and didn't become president," he said. "And now the person that beat her is getting impeached. Its a crazy time.

Hardly anyone in American history could be more intimately familiar with impeachment than Clinton, who has had ties to three of the four presidential impeachment proceedings in American history, including that of her husband Bill Clinton.

As a young lawyer fresh out of Yale Law School in 1974, Hillary Clinton was part of a team of staffers on the House Judicial Committee tasked with writing a memo on what should be considered an impeachable offense for an American president during Richard Nixons Watergate scandal.

Clinton and others on the bipartisan team produced a 64-page memo detailing the origins of impeachment and the constitutional grounds that would be needed to impeach an American president. Nixon resigned before the impeachment vote.

Analysis: For Trump and Pelosi, impeachment will shape their legacies and their futures

In 1998, Bill Clinton became the second American president, after Andrew Johnson in 1868, to be impeached when the House approved two articles of impeachment accusing him of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him of both charges the following January.

The latest impeachment inquiry was launched following a whistleblowers complaint that Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Cover for "The Books of Gutsy Women" by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton(Photo: Amazon.com)

The former first lady, senator, secretary of State and the 2016 Democratic nominee for president continues to remain a dominant voice in the national political conversation.

A new online Harris Poll survey of registered Democrats released by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard this week found that Hillary Clinton was their top choice for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

The book, which features more than 100 trailblazing women whose courage and resilience inspired them, includes American abolitionist Harriet Tubman; LGBTQ activist Edith Windsor; and Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist.

FollowSwapna Venugopal Ramaswamy on Twitter:@SwapnaVenugopal

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/12/18/trump-impeachment-hillary-clinton-calls-retire-incumbent/2695230001/

Read the rest here:
As House votes to impeach Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton pledges to help Democrats 'retire the incumbent' - USA TODAY

Former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonKrystal Ball praises Yang for calling out party on impeachment Hillary Clinton defends Dingell as 'everything that Trump is not' The Hill's Campaign Report: Buttigieg becomes top target at December debate MORE defended the late Rep. John DingellJohn DingellHillary Clinton defends Dingell as 'everything that Trump is not' The Hill's Morning Report Impeachment face-off; Dems go after Buttigieg in debate Trump's Dingell insults disrupt GOP unity amid impeachment MORE (D-Mich.) as everything that Trump is not after the president went after the former congressman at a rally this week.

Clinton tweeted that Dingell was "a true public servant and statesman in a way this president knows he can never be.

Im so proud of what @DebDingell has done to carry on John's work in Michigan and Bill and I are standing with her today, she added, referring to Rep. Debbie DingellDeborah (Debbie) Ann DingellHillary Clinton defends Dingell as 'everything that Trump is not' The Hill's 12:30 Report Presented by UANI Sparks fly at last Democratic debate of the year The Hill's Morning Report Impeachment face-off; Dems go after Buttigieg in debate MORE (D-Mich.), John Dingells widow.

.@JohnDingell was everything that Trump is nota true public servant and statesman in a way this president knows he can never be.

Im so proud of what @DebDingell has done to carry on John's work in Michigan and Bill and I are standing with her today.

The tweet comes amid backlash from members of both parties over Trump's broadside against the Dingells in their home state of Michigan this week.

Trump sparked both cheers and moans from the crowd gathered in Battle Creek, Mich., on Wednesday night after saying John Dingell, the former dean of the House, was looking up from hell after noting he lowered flags to half-staff in the wake of his death.

She calls me up. 'It's the nicest thing that's ever happened. Thank you so much. John should be so thrilled. He's looking down. He'd be so thrilled, Trump said, referring to a call he received from Debbie Dingell. 'Thank you so much, sir.'"

"I said, 'That's OK, don't worry about it.' Maybe he's looking up. I don't know, Trump said.

The attack drew rebukes from several Republicans, with lawmakers calling it inappropriate and urging the president to apologize.

Ive always looked up to John Dingell my good friend and a great Michigan legend. There was no need to 'dis' him in a crass political way. Most unfortunate and an apology is due, said Rep. Fred UptonFrederick (Fred) Stephen UptonHillary Clinton defends Dingell as 'everything that Trump is not' The Hill's Morning Report Impeachment face-off; Dems go after Buttigieg in debate Trump's Dingell insults disrupt GOP unity amid impeachment MORE (R-Mich.).

John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress, died in February at the age of 92.

Read more:
Hillary Clinton defends Dingell as 'everything that Trump is not' | TheHill - The Hill