Morganelli: Free Speech Protects Insensitive and Callous People Like Me!

On August 31, Senator Pat Toomey conducted a televised town hall at the PBS studios in Bethlehem. I covered this event for The Bethlehem Press. I was there when Simon Radecki, one of the 54 participants, got yanked when he asked Senator Toomey whether he had heard the news that Toomey's daughter Brigid had just been kidnapped. Radecki was trying to make a point about immigration, but his question was idiotic.

No sooner had the words left his mouth that the long arm of the law reached out and grabbed him. That's the last I saw of Simon Radecki. Numerous news sources, including The Morning Call, indicated that Radecki would be charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public meeting. Some more sloppy news sources reported that Radecki had been arrested.

Eventually, newspapers began to wonder whether Radecki's free speech rights had been violated. This started in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with the ACLU offering to represent Radecki even though no charges had been filed.

Morning Call columnist Bill White took things to the next level. He wrote that Radecki had been "charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public meeting." He concluded his blog entry by saying that "[t]he charges should be dropped."

Let's be clear here. No one was arrested following Radecki's question. No one has been charged. There are no charges to drop.

There probably would be charges, but as it happens, the officer who collared Radecki went on vacation.

All news accounts that imply otherwise are flat out wrong,

What's more, DA John Morganelli got wind of this matter, and asked that all details be forwarded to him for review. And yesterday, he directed Bethlehem police to close the matter.

Case closed. #J-Mo!

Morganelli is a free speech purist, an unusual trait in a district attorney. In 2004, he dismissed trespassing charges filed against peace activists who were distributing anti-war flyers on a public sidewalk outside the Palmer post office. Three years later, he dismissed criminal charges filed against a Washington Township man who was flying the American flag in an upside down position. In 2012, he refused to prosecute a troll over online comments about a judge. That year, he also dismissed attempted robbery charges against "Nature Dave," a bank protester who held a sign inside a bank, warning customers they were being robbed. He did allow one terroristic threat charge to stand. Just last year, he dismissed littering charges against Trump supporter Tricia Mezacappa when she plastered West Easton utility poles with Trump signs on election eve.

Given Morganelli's track record, I thought it was highly unlikely that he would authorize a prosecution here. For once in my life, I was right. 

"I do not find by his demeanor or the way he conducted himself [he was very polite] an intent to either disrupt the meeting or prevent it," noted Morganelli.. "In fact he was trying to participate in it."

Morganelli agreed that Radecki's ejection was proper because he violated a Code of Conduct he signed before the meeting. He called the question "callous." But as he also observed, "the criminal law cannot be utilized to remedy insensitive conduct."

Thank God If that were so, I'd be sitting in he electric chair right now, with 50,000 volts of electricity going up my ass.

Am I being callous?