Paul Boyne dishes on his plea deal, representing himself, and Counterman

Last week, on the inaugural episode of The Unknown, Rick Luthmann and I discussed Paul Boyne’s case. We start talking about Paul’s case approximately forty-nine minutes in.

Rick believes that Counterman Vs. Colorado is the best case for Paul to prove his innocence.

Paul has been in jail for about a year because he wrote mean blog posts (on his blog, thefamilycourtcircus.com) about Connecticut judges, in which he suggested the really bad ones should be killed. Below is part of the arrest warrant which cites some of the offending posts.

He is charged with cyberstalking.

Counterman involves a case in which a man sent repeated unwanted Facebook messages to a woman. He was convicted of stalking, but that was overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Beginning in 2010, Billy Counterman sent thousands of messages to singer-songwriter Coles Whalen that foreboded her death and followed her activities. Counterman was convicted of stalking in Colorado, with his conviction left intact by the Colorado Court of Appeals and Colorado Supreme Court. Under Colorado law, statements are not free speech if a reasonable person would view the statements as threatening, with no need to prove that the speaker had subjective intent to threaten. Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that there must be some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of the statements, but that a mental state of recklessness is sufficient, with no need for any more demanding form of subjective intent. Although the decision left Counterman vulnerable to conviction on retrial, some criticized it for declaring that stalking was protected by the First Amendment

If someone sending thousands of threatening Facebook messages doesn’t amount to stalking, how can mean blog posts?

Rick also said he believed his public defenders- Jennifer Buyske and Alice Powers of the Kirschbaum Law Group- were ineffective and he should represent himself.

“No one knows the case better,” Rick said in the broadcast.

I spoke to Paul from the McDougall Correctional Institution about these points and more.