It’s been a while since I took media law in college, but I seem to remember that any prior restraint is a violation of the First Amendment:
Yesterday afternoon, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Merita Hopkins barred WHDH-TV (Channel 7) from reporting on findings from the autopsies, saying autopsy results are exempt from disclosure under state public records law and can only be released with permission from next of kin. The station informed Hopkins that it would appeal the ruling to a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court today, the judge’s clerk said.
The Boston firefighters’ union sought the injunction from the judge after learning yesterday morning that the television station intended to report on the autopsy findings.
Paul Hynes, the lawyer for the union, said that the families of Cahill and Payne had not seen the autopsy results and that it would pain them to learn about the findings on television. He also said that the law is unambiguous and that WHDH had to have broken it to obtain the findings.
“There’s no way Channel 7 could have accessed these reports legally,” said Hynes, who characterized the issue as one about privacy rights. The state’s public records law says that only spouses and next of kin, agencies investigating a death, and parties in civil court cases are legally entitled to obtain autopsy reports. Even then, their release is subject to the medical examiner’s discretion.
This is completely unacceptable. The Nixon administration could not stop The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers – and that was seen as a potential threat to national security, not just to a family’s feelings. The government cannot prevent a media outlet from publishing anything, even if the information was gained illegally. (However, that does not mean that a media outlet would not face the consequences of publishing information — like libel or slander lawsuits.)
I wonder what’s really going on. I’m guessing that the union got the judge on its side somehow. The Supreme Judicial Court, if it has any integrity, will strike the original ruling down quickly. But a question remains: Why didn’t Channel 7 just ignore the ruling and air the story? That’s what I would have done.
Elsewhere: Dan Kennedy, Jessica Heslam, and Universal Hub react.
