Day in Court

Well, as predicted I didn't get seated on a jury in spite of the fact that they had five panels and four trials going today. I almost had a shot at one of them. The plaintiff was pro se so he didn't recognize me. Unfortunately, the judge and the clerk did and they held my number until the seats were already filled. I might have been seated in the Superior Court case, it was a rape trial and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that, hence the large jury pool, but the guy pleaded out by noontime so they finally let us go.

Meanwhile, here's some good news. The US 1st Circuit court found in Change the Climate's favor and ruled that the MBTA violated their free speech rights by refusing to display ads from the group addressing the legalization of marijuana.

The 1st Circuit found that although the MBTA's advertising guidelines are "viewpoint neutral" and constitutional, its rejection of the three Change the Climate ads was unreasonable and amounted to "viewpoint discrimination."

"This suspicion of viewpoint discrimination is deepened by the fact that the MBTA has run a number of ads promoting alcohol that are clearly more appealing to juveniles than the ads here," the court said.

The court ordered the MBTA to run the ads. Congratulations to Joe White and his fine organization on the win.