Post by Logan on Apr 16, 2016 8:01:14 GMT -6
The phony press release sent days before a special election last year – purporting to be a concession from the young Republican in the race – was a form of political satire, according to its author’s attorney.
The email got Concord-based liberal activist Carl Gibson charged with two crimes, a misdemeanor and a felony. But it’s no different from what happens each day at The Onion, a self-proclaimed “farcical newspaper,” or in last Sunday’s Boston Globe, defense attorney Mike Iacopino told a Merrimack County Superior Court judge Monday.
Gibson wrote that the 19-year-old Republican Yvonne Dean-Bailey was dropping out to focus on her studies at college. That’s protected speech, Iacopino said, because anyone fact-checking the announcement would have gotten in touch with Dean-Bailey and “probably would have had a conversation about, ‘How are you going to do this job if, in fact, you get elected? You’re a college student. You have other obligations.’ ”
The attorney general’s office, which obtained indictments against Gibson in October, disagrees. Gibson is charged with trying to suppress voter turnout in the special election held last May in Rockingham County’s 32nd district, a felony, and that he knowingly signed someone else’s name to a false document, a misdemeanor. Dean-Bailey won the election five days after the email was sent.
Read more: www.concordmonitor.com/Politics/State-House/hoax-artist-claims-email-protected-by-first-amendment-carl-gibson-yvonne-dean-bailey-1545527
The email got Concord-based liberal activist Carl Gibson charged with two crimes, a misdemeanor and a felony. But it’s no different from what happens each day at The Onion, a self-proclaimed “farcical newspaper,” or in last Sunday’s Boston Globe, defense attorney Mike Iacopino told a Merrimack County Superior Court judge Monday.
Gibson wrote that the 19-year-old Republican Yvonne Dean-Bailey was dropping out to focus on her studies at college. That’s protected speech, Iacopino said, because anyone fact-checking the announcement would have gotten in touch with Dean-Bailey and “probably would have had a conversation about, ‘How are you going to do this job if, in fact, you get elected? You’re a college student. You have other obligations.’ ”
The attorney general’s office, which obtained indictments against Gibson in October, disagrees. Gibson is charged with trying to suppress voter turnout in the special election held last May in Rockingham County’s 32nd district, a felony, and that he knowingly signed someone else’s name to a false document, a misdemeanor. Dean-Bailey won the election five days after the email was sent.
Read more: www.concordmonitor.com/Politics/State-House/hoax-artist-claims-email-protected-by-first-amendment-carl-gibson-yvonne-dean-bailey-1545527