Police Chief Sends Officers Out To Arrest Man For Calling The Chief A 'Dirty' Cop
from the in-a-move-guaranteed-to-only-garner-more-respect-for-the-chief dept
If any state still has a criminal defamation law on the books (and there are more than you would think), it needs to get rid of it posthaste. Besides the obvious Constitutional implications, the laws act as lèse-majesté analogs wielded by powerful government officials to silence their critics.
Criminal defamation laws have been abused multiple times by law enforcement officers and their public official friends. Louisiana public officials (and the law enforcement that willingly serves them) seem especially fond of deploying a law already declared unconstitutional to harass citizens who just won't stop complaining about the actions of their public officials.
For whatever reason, New Hampshire still has a criminal defamation law on the books. It's only a misdemeanor but that's still plenty of hassle for those who've been targeted by vindictive cops. [h/t Adam Steinbaugh]
On May 23, a police officer arrested Robert W. Frese in Exeter, New Hampshire and took him to the station for booking. Frese is no stranger to law enforcement; in the past, he has been convicted of fraud, criminal trespassing, and a hit-and-run. (His vehicle was easy to track because of its notable vanity plate: TRUMP1.) But this latest arrest, Frese learned, had nothing to do with those earlier mishaps. Instead, he had been apprehended for insulting a police officer on the internet.
The facts of the case, laid out by the Seacoast Online and the criminal complaint against Frese, are straightforward. On May 3, Frese wrote a comment on a Seacoast Online article about recently retiring police officer Dan D’Amato. He believed that D’Amato had treated him unfairly and harshly criticized his alleged misconduct. He then tore into Exeter Police Chief William Shupe, declaring that “Chief Shupe covered up for this dirty cop.”
Chief Shupe had plenty of options to respond to being called "dirty" by an Exeter resident. He could have said nothing. He could have responded by calling Frese's character into question. He could have demanded proof. He could have taken his badge off and headed to the courthouse to file a civil defamation complaint just like the rest of the unwashed masses. But he did none of these things.
Instead, he arrested Frese and charged him. The arrest itself was unusual. Class B misdemeanors generally result in citations, not arrests, because no jail time is involved. But Chief Shupe had someone to punish for daring to insult a public official, so an arrest was carried out. Shupe got his man -- and a planned arraignment -- but that's as far as this bogus criminal defamation case is going. (h/t Eugene Volokh)
Citing a review by the New Hampshire attorney general's office, Exeter police dropped the criminal defamation charge against Robert Frese for online comments he made accusing the police chief of "covering up for a dirty cop."
In a press release issued Thursday afternoon, Exeter police said "In further review by the attorney general's office of the facts of this case and the law, it is their opinion that the state would not prevail at trial. After careful consideration of all the opinions involved, the Exeter Police Department has decided to nolle prosse the charge."
This is what tends happens when someone other than an aggrieved party -- in this case, the town's police chief -- gets involved. The stupidity of the arrest is exposed by the law being read in the context of the situation. If anything is definitively protected by the First Amendment, it's political debate. An angry man venting about perceived police corruption is part of that debate. Whether or not Chief Shupe is actually corrupt remains to be seen. But this vindictive arrest certainly doesn't make him appear any more trustworthy or honest.
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Filed Under: criminal defamation, dirty cop, new hampshire, robert frese, william shupe
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Of course now that it is proven beyond one loudmouth on the internet making claims, someone might want to make sure that their aren't a large number of potential settlements waiting to be paid in the wings as the cop seems to think his position means the law is what he wants it to be.
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Nail on the head.
The first sign of someone building a corrupt government is when officials do not have to "personally" suffer for abuses they create.
But this could be resolved if we could get voters to care enough about the problem, but they don't unless it happens to them.
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Don't want to Shupe with him
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Re: Don't want to Shupe with him
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In this case, the problem is the law itself and the Police being more than willing to abuse them for purposes that these laws were not intended to address but were "shockingly" written to well... address them. This is literally the slippery slope a lot of people refuse to admit exists. And while many people are more than willing to "never attribute to malice what is sufficiently explained by stupidity", I believe the opposite. I never attribute to stupidity when when government is involved because their entire con game is to get people to believe it is "stupidity" rather than "malice" when they write laws this way.
This law is clearly intended to be used this way because it is written to be used this way.
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That's not what defamation is.
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"Chief Shupe covered up for this dirty cop."
If that's the line, Frese didn't call Shupe dirty. He called D’Amato dirty. And then accused Shupe of covering up for D’Amato.
Not quite the same as calling Shupe dirty but specifying how Shupe is corrupt, hence the descriptor dirty would be appropriate.
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'I'll show you a corrupt cop...'
Ah, gotta love it. Person accuses them of covering for a corrupt cop, and in response they make it crystal clear through their actions that the one they were covering for is not the only corrupt cop in that area.
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Re: 'I'll show you a corrupt cop...'
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Exeter Police Chief William Shupe - dirty cop
I wonder if they might get confused and wonder what the relationship between the two snippets is?
Is someone called Streisand their press agent?
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Chill
Chill accomplished.
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Lol. I think he proved the guys case. Now, that guy can sue for color of law violations.
The absurdities heaped upon the lower tier of our society are mind boggling impossible for the upper tier of our society to comprehend.
You do a great job of bringing these cockroaches into the light.
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False arrest and imprisonment
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The actual letter of the law... bah
Their refusal to proceed with a trial doesn't appear motivated by the correctness of it (ie the law) but by the fact they won't win. Screw legality, it's all about if you can win your bullsH@t claims. <sigh>
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Whether or not it's a winnable case...
...is the staple determining factor for prosecutors, typically. They'll even try two separate people for the same crime using conflicting evidence, if they think they can win.
It's a problem with the US legal system (and perhaps most legal systems in the industrialized world, that enforcement and prosecution are rewarded by convictions, not by fair and thorough adjudication. As a result, they often will prosecute suspects known to be innocent, or suspects who clearly had no malicious intent.
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Re: Whether or not it's a winnable case...
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Good thing he didn't call Shupe a terrorist
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