Andrew Shubin, a private attorney acting on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), attended Felletter’s Judicial Affairs conference Wednesday and said the university issued no sanctions and found no violations against the photographer.

Shubin, a member of the Board of Directors for the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACLU, called the decision “an excellent result and the correct result.”

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By Kevin Cirilli  
Collegian Staff Writer

A judge dismissed Wednesday the remaining charge against a Daily Collegian photographer who was arrested while on assignment photographing the Oct. 25 riot following a Penn State football team victory over Ohio State.

Citing “unclear” evidence, Centre County Judge David E. Grine dismissed the failure to disperse charge against the photographer, Michael R. Felletter, according to Grine’s ruling.

“The justice system did its part,” Felletter (senior-visual journalism) said. “Hopefully, journalists will feel freer to go out and gather the news without fearing they’ll be charged for breaking the law.”

Now Centre County officials are reviewing Grine’s ruling to determine whether to appeal or re-file the charges against Felletter, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira wrote in an e-mail.

Felletter photographed the riot, during which thousands of Penn State students flooded Beaver Canyon. Police initially arrested 14 people in connection with the incident.

Police said Felletter’s photographing caused the crowd to become “more exuberant, excited and destructive,” according to the criminal complaint.
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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.”

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Shannon P. Duffy
The Legal Intelligencer
June 2, 2009

In the court battles over prayer in school, the cutting-edge cases are increasingly coming from the kindergarten classrooms.

The latest such case, Busch v. Marple Newtown School District, attracted six friend-of-the-court briefs when it went before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and resulted in a 48-page decision with all three judges on the panel weighing in.

Voting 2-1, the court rejected the claims of the mother of a kindergarten student who said public school officials violated her First Amendment rights when they prohibited her from reading verses from the Bible — which she said was her son Wesley’s favorite book — during a program called “All About Me” week.

Writing for the court, 3rd Circuit Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica said “parents of public school kindergarten students may reasonably expect their children will not become captive audiences to an adult’s reading of religious texts.”

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A Collegian photographer’s lawyer served a motion to make a First Amendment case against his charges.
A motion served Wednesday formally spells out why attorney Andrew Shubin believes the prosecution of Collegian photographer Michael Felletter violates the First Amendment. (more…)