On Oct. 25 last year, thousands of students rushed into Beaver Canyon to celebrate Penn State’s victory over rival Ohio State.
We didn’t know it, but the First Amendment was on the line.
July 27, 2009
PENNSYLVANIA — A photographer at Pennsylvania State University’s Daily Collegian was cleared of his remaining failure to disperse charge July 22 in a pre-trial motion after he was arrested last fall while covering a post-football-game riot.
Sara Ganim – sganim@centredaily.com
Thursday, Jul. 23, 2009
A Daily Collegian photographer charged with inciting revelers during the October downtown State College riot has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a judge.
Michael Felletter had fought the two misdemeanor charges — filed by police who said his pictures were making the crowd act more rowdy and that he did not leave the scene when police ordered — on First Amendment grounds.
“In the U.S., we don’t arrest the press for covering major events and protests,” said Felletter’s attorney, Andy Shubin, who called the case “doomed from the beginning.”
In the July 23, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer
The Associated Press
BELLEFONTE, Pa. – A judge dismissed the remaining misdemeanor charge against a photographer for the independent campus newspaper at Penn State in connection with an unruly fan celebration in State College.
Prosecutors had dropped five of six misdemeanors against photographer Michael Felletter earlier this year following the Oct. 25 disturbance after the Nittany Lions’ football win at Ohio State.
A sixth count, for failing to disperse, was dismissed Wednesday by a Centre County judge.
Felletter’s lawyer (Andrew Shubin, from State College, PA) said the student was just doing his job as a member of the press.
Authorities had initially charged about 20 people in connection with the disturbance, and several were charged with felony riot.
Inmate’s wife claims authorities failed to follow procedure
and monitor husband
By Phil Ray
JOHNSTOWN — The wife of a man who committed suicide while incarcerated at Blair County Prison has filed a federal lawsuit contending that jail authorities violated procedures by not placing him on suicide watch. Jeremy Shane Corbin, 32, of Bellwood used a bedsheet to hang himself in his cell in October.
At the time, the jail contained 313 inmates, and some were housed in the gymnasium. Corbin was in jail on an allegation that he violated a protection-fromabuse order issued Oct. 9. County officials said Corbin was upset because he couldn’t see his children because of the PFA order. According to the lawsuit, Corbin told sheriff’s deputies transporting him to a hearing that he was suicidal, the lawsuit stated.
Although an extensive debate between Penn State Judicial Affairs and Olivia Guevara ended last week, the motives behind her prosecution are still being questioned.
Over the past five months, Guevara, a graduate student in the department of labor, has repeatedly challenged Penn State’s decision to prosecute her for vandalism and accused the university of singling her out to squelch her anti-sweatshop activism.
The battle has grown to involve 48 professors, labor departments from other universities, labor unions, concerned students from across the country and a local attorney who said Guevara’s First Amendment rights were at risk.
The charges stem from an incident on Sept. 27, when Guevara and several other activists chalked anti-sweatshop messages on several university buildings, including Old Main. Criminal charges against Guevara were dismissed because of a lack of evidence. However, Judicial Affairs asked for damage fees and issued a seven-year citation on her academic record.
Penn State officials have maintained that Guevara’s Judicial Affairs hearing was fair and that her prosecution was solely a matter of vandalism.
Last night, a national organization aiming to reform marijuana laws hosted its first Rally in the Valley discussion in 101 Thomas to raise awareness about legal concerns involving marijuana.
“We want to inform people about this issue and have some positive conversations about the marijuana issue,” Jason Bundy, co-president of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), said.
Bundy told about 30 people that NORML is a resource for those who need legal advice, as well as an organization that promotes legislation to reform marijuana laws.
Andrew Shubin, a criminal defense attorney, was present to give legal advice concerning marijuana laws.
Shubin explained that a school zone has much harsher consequences for felonies than any other area.
“If you are within 1,000 feet of any part of Penn State University, whether it’s the 18th hole of the golf course, a garage that Penn State owns, the high school or a playground, that’s a school zone,” he said. “That’s basically all of State College.”
The mandatory minimum sentence for possession of marijuana is two to four years in a school zone, compared to probation to one month anywhere else, Shubin said.
“That’s the difference one foot can make,” he said.
Shubin gave advice on what to do if confronted by a police officer.
“Be courteous. … The first thing you should do is assert your right to counsel,” he said. “And without your consent, an officer needs a warrant to search your house.”
A big topic of the discussion was the use of student informants in drug busts.
Sam Richards, senior lecturer in sociology, said that a petition opposing the use of student informants in drug busts
was circulated among faculty members in the early ’90s, and only about 5 percent of the faculty did not sign it.
“It’s just not the kind of campus you want to create,” he said.
Shubin said the biggest problem at Penn State is not marijuana, but rather alcohol abuse and its “collateral crimes,” such as domestic abuse and drunk driving.
Nick Drewchin (freshman-economics) said that “everyone from Graham Spanier to the middle school kids at Mount Nittany … knows that kids in the frats get wasted, and then sexual assault happens.”
Richards said one of the concerns with the legality of marijuana is that there is not a national discussion about it.
“If I asked you how much marijuana is takes to get high, no one would know,” he said. “But we could all probably agree on how many drinks it takes to get drunk.”
Bundy said the idea that no amount of marijuana is lethal could be dangerous without any guidance.
“If you know no amount is toxic, how do you set your limits?” he said.
Bundy said that marijuana laws are based on “the worst of us, not the most of us.”
“There is a difference between use and abuse,” he said, adding that the group does not promote abuse.
Criminal charges were dropped after the convention. Activists called the situation unfair, a double standard.
By Daryl Lang
Collegian Staff Writer
Penn State is considering whether to punish three students who refused police orders to leave a university building during a July protest, the students said yesterday.
The students said the situation is unfair because their case has already been heard in court and the criminal charges against them were all dismissed.
“It’s just a pathetic attempt to try to pin something on us,” said Justin Leto (senior-computer engineering), who organized the protest.
The protest is the third recent incident in which Penn State’s Office of Judicial Affairs has taken on a controversial legal matter, including a case when the office declined to punish a football player charged with assault.
Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said yesterday that the university’s judicial process concerns whether students broke a university rule, something separate from a criminal charge.
The three student demonstrators — Leto, Robyn Stephens (senior-sociology) and Michelle Yates (junior-women’s studies) — each were called to meet with the director of judicial affairs. The meetings took place over the last two weeks.
Each declined to admit any wrongdoing and will have their case decided at judicial hearings that have yet to be scheduled.
Working as a group called “Redirection 2000″, the students waved signs and banners on July 10 to protest the failure of the National Governors’ Association Annual Meeting to respond to the menu of causes they support.
Several students climbed through a second-floor window in order to hang a sign on a balcony facing a governors event at the HUB-Robeson Center. Penn State Police Services ordered the students to leave and arrested five of them.
“Being on the ledge wasn’t something the university approved of, and it wasn’t safe,” said Mahon, who said he was present at the demonstration.
After their arrest, police charged all five students with “defiant trespass.”
At a July 20 preliminary hearing, District Justice Daniel Hoffman dismissed all the charges against the demonstrators.
But recently, three of the students were called before Joseph Puzycki, Penn State’s director of judicial affairs, for disciplinary action.
Penn State accused Leto, Stephens and Yates of “failure to comply with a directive” and “unauthorized use of university buildings/facilities,” the students said in a statement.
Penn State never figured out who the other two arrested demonstrators were, Leto said.
Puzycki allowed State College attorney Andy Shubin, who is representing the students free of charge, to sit in on one of the meetings, Shubin said.
Shubin wonders why the university keeps pursuing the case even after court testimony July 20 from Penn State University Relations Executive Director Steve MacCarthy. The students said MacCarthy had given them permission to be in the building.
“What’s upsetting here is that the university’s official and the top guy on the scene has already testified under oath,” Shubin said. “That testimony essentially exonerates them from any wrongdoing. . . . Of course, the university is a large institution and maybe the left hand isn’t talking to the right hand.”
Thomas Bugaj says his seized T-shirt’s message is protected political speech.
A Penn State student cited last month for wearing a “Fuck Petrol” T-shirt on College Avenue says State College Police violated his free speech rights.
Police cited Thomas Bugaj, 22, on Sept. 21 for disorderly conduct and confiscated his shirt.
Bugaj (senior-sculpture) wore the homemade shirt during a Critical Mass bike rally in celebration of World Car-Free Day. His blue shirt with black lettering supported international demonstrators, particularly in Great Britain and France, where union members have been protesting high fuel costs, Bugaj said.
Although he has a driver’s license for identification purposes, Bugaj said he bikes everywhere.
“I don’t drive a car,” he said.
The shirt was a protected form of political speech, and some local lawyers and civil rights activists agree with him, Bugaj said.
Several students protested his citation during the First Amendment Festival Tuesday.
Andy Shubin, a local American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said Bugaj’s shirt — and the obscenity written on it — is protected because it was a political message.