RICHLAND CO.—The judge appointed to handle the case of frivolous complaints against Disclosure Publisher Jack Howser has entered a decision in Disclosure’s favor after more than two months of deliberation.
Lawrence County resident Judge Robert Hopkins, assigned to the case after removal of Associate Judge Kim Harrell in 2012 and then White County Judge Thomas Sutton’s retirement later that year, submitted his ruling on February 13, 2014, after a hearing on November 26, 2013, during which testimony was given only by Howser in a complaint that a questionably-issued Order of Protection had been violated.
The violation complaint was filed by opposing attorney, former Richland County prosecutor Chuck Roberts, who has had heartburn against Disclosure since losing a case to them pro se in 2009.
Roberts also happens to be the attorney for the other side of the Howsers’ grandchild, whom the Howsers were granted guardianship of in November 2010, yet another source of contention for Roberts, as the Howsers continued to prevail in court on that issue as well.
Chuck Roberts, above, attorney for the Howsers who are hostile against Disclosure as well as the family of the baby whose probate case over which the entire OP debacle was designed to intrude into.
The OP violation allegation came about likely at the behest of Roberts, who has been acting in the capacity of attorney since 2009 for members of the Howser family seeking to cause problems for Disclosure, this after years of being Jack and Angela Howsers land trust attorney as well as trustee. Since Disclosure’s coverage of events in the 24-county region is truthful and based on documents, information from official sources, or eyewitness reports, anyone with issues to be raised with the paper would by law have to go about making complaints in the established tort venue of libel. However, family members somehow hit upon the notion (likely fomented by Roberts and his skewed way of thinking) that because they are related to the publisher, they could claim “harassment” via Orders of Protection, thus stopping the paper from writing about them in coverage of any court matters—or even work-related matters, as many of them are employed by a taxpayer-supported entity—without having to file a libel case, which they would ultimately not only lose, but probably have thrown out of court on a first motion by the defense.
That didn’t stop Roberts, however: as reported last year (August-September 2013 edition), he filed a violation of an existing OP that was only granted after years of hoop-jumping and gyration.
Waited eight months to file: why?
In his violation filing, Roberts stated that Howser violated the OP by coverage of the court proceedings beginning in October 2012, following Sutton’s ruling that he, as judge in the case, could not prevent Howser from writing about his own court case, despite Roberts’ claims that doing so would “harass” his clients, the now-deceased Dan Howser, Dan’s son Tom Howser, and Dan’s now-widow, Alexis Davis, all listed as “protected persons” in the OP despite the fact that Jack Howser has had literally no contact with any of them in the years preceding the initial March 24, 2011 filing.
The matter is one of the most bizarre cases ever to come out of Richland County circuit court, and in fact is precedent-setting in the state of Illinois, as virtually no applicable case law was to be found in advance of Hopkins’ ruling.
However, Hopkins, who is known in the Second Judicial Circuit as a Constitutional scholar, saw through the machinations Roberts put forth, and ruled in the favor of Disclosure in a 52-page decision that sets forth, basically, its own case law in Illinois: Even under an OP issued by family, a newspaper publisher can write about that family and in particular the OP case in which they are involved, and the matter is NOT considered “harassment”…thus protecting the First Amendment right of Freedom of the Press.
Sought to move aspects of the case forward
Roberts filed an OP violation Rule to Show Cause in July 2013 after Disclosure’s attorney requested for Jack Howser a status hearing on the OP in March of that same year.
Having been granted on April 24, 2012, part of the decision in the case entailed the elder Howser being “granted permission” to have a survey done of the property belonging to him (Dan Howser) and Jack Howser, the properties sitting on adjoining parcels, as well as having a fence built between the two.
As Jack Howser had by July 2013 moved to Harrisburg, it was merely a matter of course of law for him to seek a status of the case, as well as his right to find out why, after a year, nothing was moving in it.
Roberts turned that into something more, however.
Instead of consenting to a status hearing and giving an honest report of how things were ‘progressing,’ Roberts filed a motion in which it was stated that Howser had violated the OP numerous times, by writing about the court case directly from the course of the hearings held since March 2011.
Howser very clearly stated in the first article, in print in October’s Special Edition 2012, that there had been no coverage up to that point because he hadn’t wished to appear to sway the judge’s decision on the matter by writing about the account as witnessed by Disclosure staff numerous times throughout the course of March 2011 to the final decision in September 2012.
Others, however, had covered the matter while it was under way, including the Edgar County Watchdogs, who attended hearings, as well as Olney town pest Brian James O’Neill, who also attended numerous hearings only to harass Howser, then write his skewed version of events on the mainstream media McClatchy-owned topix.com.
Tom Howser, who made the mistake of giving no testimony at the November 26, 2013 hearing for the OP violation motion.
Sutton’s order was clear
Instead of having filed any alleged “violation” at the time of the first print article (which appeared on the front pages of both the regular edition of Disclosure, as well as the companion paper at the time, Disclosure Heartland on October 5, 2012, and ran in a series of articles over several months), Roberts waited until July 2013 to file, as if the elder Howser had just realized that such a thing was a “violation.”
Naturally, that specious action only made it appear that the elder Howser was covering something up regarding ‘progress’ he had requested of the judge, and Jack Howser’s attorney set the matter for a hearing to refute the violation allegation.
It was Jack Howser’s position that there had been no violation because he had not been ordered to stop writing about the case or anyone involved in it. In fact, on September 28, 2012, Sutton had entered into the record, during a clarification hearing called specifically for that purpose:
“The motion for clarification of the respondent raises the question previously addressed as to whether the trial court (Harrell), by entering a plenary order of protection, was enjoining the responded from publishing articles about the petitioner.
“As I indicated before, the respondent points out the trial court’s decision finding harassment made in part by articles he published in the Disclosure about the petitioners, therefore he reasons that the order of protection ordering him not to harass the petitioners, in effect, orders him not to publish articles about the petitioners. The motion specifically states that the respondent seeks clarification of the court’s ruling as to whether he is enjoined from publishing articles in the Disclosure regarding any of the petitioners. My review of that order,” Sutton said very clearly, and which is noted in the transcript on file in the case, “I find that the trial court did not impose any prohibition or restriction on the publication of articles in the Disclosure newspaper.” (italics ours for emphasis—ed.)
“The only remedy that could be remotely considered a prohibition or restriction was that the respondent, Jack Howser, is prohibited from committing the following acts of abuse or threats of abuse, and those are listed as harassment, interference with personal liberty, physical abuse or stalking. However, the trial court was specific and did not order a prohibition or restriction on publication, only a prohibition to not harass.”
No harassment, interference, physical abuse or stalking, which leaves…publication
Naturally, it was Roberts’ contention that writing about any court matter the elder Howser was involved in with the younger was a violation of the existing OP, wherein no “harassment, interference with personal liberty, physical abuse or stalking,” as listed under Illinois’ Domestic Violence Act, had been proven against Jack Howser, since there had been no contact between the parties (that Jack Howser had initiated, at any rate) since June 2009…which was why the OP was so confusing to begin with.
Sutton couldn’t know what Harrell was thinking, so he couldn’t clarify any further than the fact that he couldn’t issue “prior restraint” against Disclosure from publishing anything.
Harrell was off the case, so she couldn’t clarify any further.
So the matter fell to Hopkins, who on Nov. 26 heard the sole testimony of Jack Howser, since Dan Howser didn’t bother to show up to his own hearing, and Tom Howser was apparently only there for effect, not for offering testimony.
Despite repeated insistence that Roberts “wasn’t trying to violate the First Amendment,” the attorney showed his hand early on when, throughout his questioning, he hammered about the publication…since there wasn’t anything else Jack Howser had ever done to harass, interfere with personal liberty, physically abuse or stalk his family members.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it
In Roberts’ very first questions, he asked if Howser was principally responsible for what’s in the newspaper, then stated “And if you could pull a story if you were concerned that you may be harassing your father, Alexis Howser, or Tom Howser, am I correct?” indicating that the very act of producing a factual article about the three for whom the OP was issued was “harassment” in the face of Sutton having determined it was not.
Roberts next set of questions had to do with “people reading the paper then telling the three about it,” as if what readers were doing by talking to the elder Howsers was not the harassment; instead, the publication of it that prompted them to talk about it was.
Roberts then tried to imply, through questioning, that coverage of the OP case was done in an attempt to “get back at” Dan Howser, which would be a form of harassment. Referring to a photograph reproduced here in this article, Roberts asked “Do you understand how that photograph, appearing in the newspaper in that fashion, could be a harassment of Dan Howser?”
“I understand how people don’t have to look at it, just like they don’t have to look at pornography if they don’t want to see it,” Jack Howser answered.
Roberts was so befuddled by his own case, and by lack of understanding of how the news world works, that he neglected to note that publication of Tom Howser’s very public assault on Jack and Angela Howser in Old Shawneetown in July of 2011 was done in August of 2011, and not just post-decision of the OP, and spent an inordinate amount of the court’s time on Nov. 26 asking about that immaterial point.
In short, Roberts, along with his clients, didn’t seem to understand that once the OP was filed, it became a matter of public record, like anyone else’s, and, like anyone else’s, Disclosure was going to write about it if it was of great public interest.
Given that the OP was bordering on flagrant violation of the First Amendment, the matter was not just of interest to Richland County taxpayers (whose tax dollars were funding the court proceedings), but also to all of the country, as ongoing abrogations of the First Amendment impinge upon the citizens daily.
This photo, shot in mid-April 2011, was one of the early indications that the law and the courts weren’t going to be of much help to Disclosure staff: During this incident, prompted by Dan Howser (shown here flipping the bird to staff attempting to document what was going on), Jack and Angela Howser were startled when a man parked on their property and began walking around the premises. Trying to find out what was going on, they learned ultimately that it was a surveyor, but by that time, Dan Howser was screaming and making obscene gestures at them. The survey was not completed, and the Howsers were trying to get that done when attorney Chuck Roberts pulled a stunt in court last year that lead to an OP violation filing. The fact that Dan Howser was the one assaulting staff had no impact on then-judge Kim Harrell, who ruled against the younger Howser on the frivolous OP, prompting a series of court dates, about which Disclosure finally wrote in October 2012 after what seemed to be resolution to the case. Roberts doesn’t seem to understand that publication of this photo is directly related to the case, and is not a violation of the OP: a fact that was upheld by Judge Robert Hopkins on February 13, 2014.
Obsessed with the word ‘bizarre’
Roberts, unable to get Howser to commit to any notion that coverage of a real court case was in any form a “harassment” of a party involved, turned to the word “bizarre” in a subsequent 2013 article about the case.
In May/June 2013, the lead of the coverage of the matter read “Proceedings on the pointless order of protection have been reset in the case of Disclosure publisher Jack Howser, whose bizarre stepfather, Dan Howser…” etc.
“Is calling your stepfather ‘bizarre’ a way to harass him?” Roberts asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Howser answered, “if he is acting bizarre.”
“Can you tell me what about Daniel Howser’s conduct you would regard as bizarre?” Roberts asked.
“I think the whole order of protection proceeding has been bizarre,” Howser said.
“Okay.”
“I believe that—and I hope I am allowed to finish this,” Howser said, and Hopkins nodded. “I believe that no fewer than two, possibly three judges, have said that if I would agree not to publish a word about Dan Howser, then the whole OP thing would go away, like I am no longer dangerous, which tells me nobody really thought I was dangerous in the first place. This is about publication. Which to me rises above just Jack Howser’s right to publish. It is a First Amendment right. This is going to be case law, and everybody will be held to this standard. This is no longer about Disclosure. This is about journalists being allowed to publish news events.
“You don’t have to read it. You don’t have to listen to it. Just like I ignore you when you try to come up and talk to me in public, like you like me, because I know you don’t. And I don’t like you. And I turn around and I walk away. And I’m not offended. And I don’t file orders of protection against you because you continue to try to talk to me. I just walk away like an adult. So I think the whole thing is bizarre. That’s how we got here. Yes.”
Roberts, miffed, tried to put into the record—even stating “just for the record”—“I haven’t tried to talk to you in years.”
“That is a lie, Mr. Roberts,” Howser answered, to which Hopkins suggested that they not debate that.
For the record—for real—Chuck Roberts speaks to Jack Howser, as well as every member of Disclosure staff, every single time he sees them in a public realm, including the third floor of the Richland County courthouse, the circuit clerk’s office, and on the street…all of which have had eyewitnesses to the fact, all of which Howser ignores, and the most recent of which being in September of 2013.
Smirky Chuck
Roberts then tried to belittle Howser’s statement of the importance of the case.
“So I guess I missed the nexus between calling Daniel Howser ‘bizarre’ and how the future of the publication industry is at stake over that,” he smirked. “The name calling doesn’t affect anything about whether or not publications can publish, does it?”
“I think if adding a label, like bizarre or heinous, in the case of a child murder,” Howser answered, “if a publication is then under an order of protection and subject to penalties of law for using descriptives, yeah, I think it goes to the whole First Amendment issue and involves all publications. Because I certainly believe some things are heinous, and horrible, and tragic. And to not be able to use descriptives just because somebody has a problem and can’t keep themselves from reading it and can’t walk away from somebody talking to them about it flies in the face of the Constitution, not just me and what I want to write, it’s everybody.”
Roberts then tried to adjust his attack on Howser as regards the word ‘bizarre,’ but Howser again shut him down, declaring that it’s not just the fact that an OP was issued that was bizarre, but it was every little niggling thing, a laundry list of claims Dan Howser made against Jack Howser in his petition for the OP (as allowed by Harrell, since the initial petition—an emergency OP—was shot down), that were bizarre—each and every one of them, which were outlined, for the most part, between the October 2012 Special Edition and the May 2013 paper.
Roberts then had no further questions.
Racklin underscores what’s ridiculous about it, aka ‘bizarre’
The closing argument provided by Howser’s attorney Jon Racklin touched upon the ridiculousness of the entire thing.
Noting that the OP does NOT prohibit publication, just ‘harassment’ without elaborating on what Harrell believed to be harassment at the time (despite what is considered so by law), Racklin said “The question comes down to this issue of what was put in as ‘harassment.’ I realize attorney Roberts says, ‘Hey, Judge, this isn’t a First Amendment issue,’ oh, but it IS a First Amendment issue. And that’s the rule, the law that governs these types of things. Mr. Roberts’ own pleadings indicate that this is a general publication, Judge…a general circulation publication.
“This isn’t a situation where my client worked in a factory, got an order of protection against him, and said, you know what, I’m going to get around this order of protection by starting a newspaper. And the sole purpose of this newspaper is I want to publish stuff about my family. That’s not the facts of this case, Judge.”
Racklin referenced newspaper issues submitted as Plaintiff’s exhibits.
“You have a 0 30 page, some-odd, newspapers, each edition. There is one article about a family member in those. There are articles about Brian James O’Neill. There are articles about murderers, state’s attorneys, judges, attorneys, all kinds of people that are involved in the arena of law.
“If you open this door, this becomes an issue. If Brian James O’Neill doesn’t like what my client is publishing, he can go get a Stalking/No-Contact Order alleging harassment, and the next thing you know, BAM, my client is in trouble for anything he publishes against Brian James O’Neill. What if Ray McGrew, the publisher from the Olney paper, publishes something about his daughter. She doesn’t like it, she files an order of protection. Now the Olney Daily Mail can’t publish something, even if Ray didn’t write the article. So we are really, Judge, on the brink of a very slippery slope.”
‘Prior restraint’
Racklin presented case law, not about OPs (as nothing existed), but of prior restraint cases. Prior restraint, succinctly put, is censorship, which decades ago was ruled illegal and in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of freedom of the press: a court cannot order a newspaper to not publish something it’s about to publish, or the court can be found in violation of the First Amendment.
In the presentation about prior restraint, Racklin was careful to note that at no time had the court heard anything about any of the published articles being untrue, which would fall into another court action, libel.
“There’s a right way to do it, an order of protection is not,” Racklin said. “And this difference is, Judge…this is a backwards way to get into a criminal case. I have never heard of publication ever becoming a criminal issue…but it could be in this cause….we are taking purely civil tort and turning it into something that has a criminal penalty. And that, I think, is the danger of where we are going with the actions of Mr. Roberts in this case, Judge,” Racklin said, wisely noting that it was not so much the actions of Roberts’ clients as it was Roberts himself, since none of his clients were concerned enough to offer testimony on that Nov. 26 date.
“They don’t like Disclosure,” Racklin said. “They are trying to harass my client’s ability to earn income. That’s what he does for a living. And what it comes down to, Judge is they know that articles are in this newspaper. It involves cases…things that are going on in this 20-county area in the court system. They don’t have to read it. They don’t have to read it at all. It’s not directed to them; it’s not direct communication.
“It’s no different than someone who has a Facebook account stating something, you know, that I went to court today and an order of protection was entered against me by my crazy ex-wife. I don’t believe that’s a direct communication. I don’t believe that violates an order of protection that’s entered. I think it requires some form of communication to a third party—to the individuals, either directly or through a third party.”
Chuck: Needs to start his own newspaper and quit dictating what others write
Roberts took issue with the argument of “trying to harass the defendant and stop his work,” and declared that Howser has “many other articles that he can write about.” He also whined about the fact that the October 2012 article and series ran “so long after the fact,” totally overlooking the testimony given that the matter was held so as to not give the appearance of attempting to sway the judge(s) in the case one way or another.
“I just think that screams credulity,” Roberts sniffed. “It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.”
Roberts even conjectured that “by getting to put things in about his family, he gets to have an ability to harass them by having people bothering them about different issues,” a “fact” to which no testimony was ever offered that Jack Howser had ever “had anyone bother” members of his family.
Roberts, stumbling over his reasonings as none of them held any kind of water, attempted to impose what HE feels is “newsworthy” and what is not.
“If Tom Howser did something in the line of work at the Department of Correction to have to shoot an escapee in the back, which we never hope occurs, but if something like that occurred, man, is that something that might be newsworthy? And then Jack Howser might cover that story, probably would, in his newspaper, and it would not be something that we think is harassment because an event took place. But there is no event here,” Roberts droned, not realizing that what he was talking about was literally DOZENS of court dates over the time period from June 2009 to the present, each of which he was calling “nothing,” “there is nothing that’s newsworthy, and that shows that it’s done for harassment. And that’s what’s wrong with it.”
Ordered not to harass…oh wait, and not to harass by writing…
Roberts then made the equally-weak argument of “no prior restraint.
“The cases where Mr. Racklin provided you that talk about prior restraint, that doesn’t exist here, Judge. He’s only ordered not to harass my clients. He’s not ordered not to publish. He can publish. He published many articles in each of those newspapers. He published numerous articles about cases going on in court or investigations going on. And writing about his family in those paper is an anomaly, I would say. It’s totally different than the other stories in the newspaper. And that in effect is evidence of the scienter. Evidence of his intent to harass.”
Roberts stepped in it when he said “He could have chosen better in how he handled these matters. He didn’t have to write about something about Thomas Howser that was 15 months to 18 months previously; something, as Mr. Racklin and I agree, was discussed at trial” (italics ours, to emphasize that if it occurred “at trial,” it is of course newsworthy, especially since the harassment issued against Howser by his half-brother was brought up not only in the OP trial, but in the guardianship matter as well.)
Roberts then ridiculously compared Howser writing about his family as the equivalent of yelling ‘fire’ in a theatre.
“That’s not protected by the First Amendment,” he said. “Those kinds of things, Mr. Howser should be advised not to do by the Court in this matter. And if he does it again, he may get to a point where he could be sentence for something.
“There is such a thing as judgment, I think. And publishers should have judgment. Mr. Howser says he’s got 20 years experience in newspapers, and I think he would know how to write something—how to write something wrong and how to write something that avoids trouble. He’s not choosing to do that yet; he needs to.”
Yes, that was confusing
Racklin talked, in his final argument, about how confusing Roberts was.
“You can’t say publish whatever you want, and then after the fact, we will decide whether or not that violates a court order…that’s not how the Illinois Supreme Court has held it. That’s what makes this a First Amendment issue, is this vagueness that Roberts certainly indicated in his argument that my client’s not prohibited from publishing articles, not prohibited from publishing articles about his family…he admitted to that. So I’m not sure why we are here today, then, Judge,” Racklin said.
Further, Racklin pointed out Roberts error about why the articles were published when they were: “My client didn’t publish some of these articles because he didn’t want to publish anything during the middle of the proceeding. Once this thing was over in May or June of 2012, he started publishing some things to catch up the public on what was going on in this case because he didn’t want to be perceived as attempting to influence it during the proceeding itself. So the fact that he published something in November of last year doesn’t strike me as a big issue.”
Acknowledges no case law exists
One of the first things Hopkins noted in his Feb. 13, 2014 ruling was “To this court’s knowledge, this issue has not been addressed by the Illinois courts: as to whether a publication in a public newspaper by an order of protection respondent of communications/ articles, ostensibly to the public, can constitute banned communications under an order of protection.
“The court concludes that the language in question in the order of protection may not reasonably be construed to, specifically, encompass such publication under present circumstances,” Hopkins wrote. “It may have been probable, at the times of publication, that members of the public who were acquainted with the protected parties might tell them about these articles. It might also have been likely that [Jack Howser], at such times, was aware of this likelihood when he published the articles. Nevertheless, the likelihood of this cause-and-effect scenario is not within the meaning of the language of the order banning communication by [Jack Howser] ‘with the protected parties either directly or through third parties.’”
Having gotten the preliminary issue out of the way—that the OP did not keep Jack Howser from writing about members of his family, even those protected by an existing order—he began to dissect the term “harassment” under law.
With page after page of Illinois case law on harassment, Hopkins stated that by applying these standards in the context of this case, he found Jack Howser was aware that the OP was entered, and aware of the terms; he also found that the petitioners “in fact suffered anxiety and emotional distress as a result of the alleged conduct of [Jack Howser].”
However, the “remaining subissue regarding whether [Jack Howser] violated the court’s order by harassing the respondents, aside from the question of First Amendment Protections, is whether or not the complained-of conduct was necessary to accomplish a purpose that was reasonable under the circumstances. [Howser], in his testimony, stated that this purpose was to publish the news. The court also believes that the evidence shows that this publication was, at least in part, intended by [Howser] to publicize his side of the dispute.”
Hopkins then stated he would set aside that issue until after analysis of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment analysis
Citing historical case law including New York Times v. Sullivan and Cook Co. ex. rel. Carey v. Starview Drive-in Theatre, Inc., Hopkins then reviewed prior restraint, which are termed in the Sullivan case law as “disfavored and presumptively invalid
“Circumstances more urgent than these have been adjudged insufficient to justify the imposition of a prior restraint,” he cited from New York Times Co. v. United States, a 1971 case. “As noted by the California Supreme Court, even the publication of the purloined Pentagon Papers concerning matters of national security could not be restrained.”
“In addition, prior restraints are not permitted to stop the publication of a defamatory statement,” he wrote per Wilson v. Superior Court. “As our state Supreme Court put it, the published First Amendment cases ‘leave no doubt that the truth or falsity of a statement on a public issue is irrelevant to the question whether it should be repressed in advance of publication. The concept that a statement on a public issue”—such as coverage of a mere court proceeding—“may be suppressed because it is believed by a court to be untrue is entirely inconsistent with constitutional guarantees and raises the specter of censorship in a most pernicious form.”
Hopkins mentioned valid prior restraints, which would include “military secrets in time of war…an injunction restraining speech may issue in some circumstance to protect private rights…or to prevent deceptive commercial practices.
“The judiciary has been ever mindful of Thomas Jefferson’s aphorism that ‘error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is free to combat it.’”
Hopkins, after citing copious case law about the courts restraining people from speaking about such matters as making negative statements in front of children during divorce proceedings, concluded that the OP against Howser “does not constitute prior restraint in that it does not specify particular speech or classes of speech prohibited under the order.”
A firm and definitive conclusion
Hopkins’ conclusion was firm and definitive.
He stated he was noting the articles in question that Roberts brought to the violation hearing “appear to be primarily a presentation of what purports to be factual matters, as opposed to mere negative opinions or name calling at, or about, [Dan and Tom Howser and Alexis Davis].”
If the articles had been written in such a manner, Hopkins wrote, “as to give the appearance of being directly addressed to the protected parties, then it would make a stronger case that it was directed at [Dan, Tom and Alexis] and might skirt closer to the unprotected speech area.”
Furthermore, Hopkins wrote, “if the articles were repetitive such as to be of relatively low news value on that basis, and additionally contained significant amounts of mere name-calling as opposed to factual reporting such that they were of relatively low news value for this reason also, but instead were designed to harass [Dan, Tom and Alexis] by what was essentially repetitive name-calling, then, under those circumstances, the court might find something closer to unprotected speech, which is harassing conduct.”
But the articles, by these definitions, were newsworthy; they were not harassing; and they did fall under protected speech.
For those reasons, Hopkins wrote, he was not going to allow the publications to be considered violations to the OP, as they were not harassing conduct.
“The court therefore concludes that [Jack Howser] has not violated the Plenary Order in publishing these articles,” Hopkins wrote in conclusion.
That would mean that this article, based almost entirely upon court transcript and the judge’s order, would not be a violation, either…as will not be any future articles.
Disclosure is currently seeking ways to file a tort against Roberts for the harassment he has continued to perpetrate against Disclosure, this action made clearly evident in the November 26 hearing wherein he made the mistake of having NONE of his clients testify. This news organization has been conferring with not only upstate attorneys about the matter, but working with some of the top agencies in the country who support journalists who constantly come under fire from public officials who have an axe to grind with them.
Currently, Roberts is considered just such a public official, as the Richland County Clerk Cash Disbursements Journal from the period of Jan. 14 to Feb. 13, 2014, shows that the county has paid him $525 for public defense duties, duties of which Disclosure has been highly critical in the past several years.
As well, Roberts is a Richland County Republican Party officer and a precinct committeeman…another position of which Disclosure, with close affiliates to the Republican Party region-wide, has been highly critical in the past.
When and if such a tort is filed, likely in a federal court venue, Disclosure will be reporting on that case…whether as it goes along, or at the conclusion of it, will be determined at that time.