Marilyn Mosby, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, doesn’t like the many critical and investigative stories that WBFF Baltimore has run about her and just sent an astonishing letter to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that its “coverage [be] curtailed and ceased.” Mosby’s letter really must be seen to be believed: it openly seeks to intimidate and chill speech protected by the First Amendment.
Notes UCLA lawprof and leading free speech law expert Eugene Volokh writes: “I note that none of the letter’s claims of ‘distortion’ are supported by any actual explanation of why the stories are supposedly inconsistent with the facts.” After examining and dismissing as unactionable other charges raised in the Mosby letter, including invasion of her privacy, he adds: “certainly critical news coverage, whether of prosecutors, police officers, or anyone else, can’t be suppressed on the grounds that some tiny fraction of the audience may be so angered by it that they will commit crimes against the people being criticized. I expect the FCC to (rightly) dismiss the complaint.”
Free State Notes 