Journalist Headed to Jail over Source Protection and Speech

Interesting… Journalist goes to jail for a speech on a private Facebook page that written by a group of activist that the journalist was following for an investigative story…

Teri Buhl website:

I am going to jail. On June 21, 2016 the Conn. Supreme Court overturned a NOT Guilty breach of peace misdemeanor charge I was convicted of in 2013. The charge relates to speech on a private Facebook page that was written by a group of activist I was following for an investigative story I was working on in 2010 about Wall St. parents in New Canaan, CT who were supporting illegal underage parties where teens were getting date raped and alcohol poisoning and some of the local New Canaan cops were covering it up and refusing to arrest parents.

The legal logic of the Supreme court was so absurd it’s hard to understand how they got their decision without bias and an abuse of justice. You can read one opinion written by a law professor on the court’s decision here. The bottom line is the State Supreme Court has used my breach of peace charge for non-violent, non-threatening, truthful speech to create case law in Connecticut making it illegal to say something vexing or alarming or even mean on a facebook/social media page. Truthful but uncomfortable speech is now criminal in CT. My attorney Steven Seegar has explained the Supreme court is doing this partly because of the lack of cyberbullying criminal laws the CT state legislature (thankfully) won’t pass. Some legislators have tried to pass laws that relate to how a victim feels when you are charged with harassment or breach of peace for speech instead of the current statute that says to be criminally guilty you have to prove the intent of the defendant to alarm or annoy a person. Can you imagine if every time a citizen blogger exposed someone for wrong doing and talked about their opinion of the person online that they could be charged criminally because the person talked about felt alarmed that others had figured out their crimes? When did we make what some consider mean speech a criminal action?

I find the legal logic of a breach of peace charge for online speech illogical in the first place. Let’s think about this…the truth can be vexing and alarming at times. Especially the truth in this case that spoke to a teenager named Meagan Brodywho wrote a letter about the embarrassing consequences of binge drinking and the illegal underage drinking parties her friend Avery Underwood and herparents were allowing. Meagan’s actions expressed in her letter, which I believe she shared with her friends and was first to make public, were also witnessed by tons of teens at the party including her friend walking in on her making out drunk with a boy she had just met. Meagan had bragged in her letter about giving the boy ‘the best blow job ever’ and then went on to wonder why her friend was mad at her for taking the boy upstairs to have hook-up oral sex when her friend was just hoping the boy would ask her out on a date. The letter was an eye opening warning to what happens when teens binge drink and the casual sex behavior of our youth generation in wealthy Wall St. bedroom communities. It was also a piece of evidence that adults could be supporting these parties. Meagan for her part made up a story that someone took the letter from a drawer in her bedroom although when she reported the event to the police the letter was still in her drawer. She is claiming part of the letter was uploaded to a private Facebook page that you had to be invited to see and comment on and she wasn’t ever invited to view the page. Meaning no one ever tried to make direct contact with Meagan. She later testified in court, a day or two later she could see parts of the page. I can only assume this is because someone tagged her in one of the Facebook post or she is lying. I know as a fact from speaking with a PR person at Facebook the page was set up as private. The private v. public issue of the Facebook page was important to the court because of the statute of breach of peace that says you have to be making a public disturbance. She has also claimed that letter was a private diary but at trial she testified her real diary is kept on her computer. Meagan Brody turns 24 in August, was graduated from High School, and two months away from her 18th birthday at the time of the Facebook posting. She attended Boston University and it appears she is now trying to model lingerie. I never wrote anything on the Facebook page and have continued to say I am not guilty.