Free speech loses out in Kahre case

Prosecutors try to intimidate commenters on a newspaper site.

"A federal judge has ruled against the ACLU’s motion to quash a subpoena that federal prosecutors had issued against the Las Vegas Review Journal in the Robert Kahre legal-tender/tax resistance case in Las Vegas....

Yesterday, September 29, the presiding judge, Kent Dawson, ruled against the ACLU, stating that its motion was now moot given that the jury in the Kahre case had already returned a verdict.

The judge’s ruling strikes me as extremely strange and highly dubious, given the timeline of events: The ACLU’s motion and request for recusal was filed in mid-June, 2009. The Kahre verdict was reached two months later, in mid-August 2009. Therefore, the judge obviously had two months to rule on the matter while the Kahre case was taking place. Yet, for some unknown reason he sat on the matter without ruling on it, letting the Kahre case come to a conclusion. Then, after waiting for the trial to end, he issues a ruling declaring the entire matter moot.

The judge’s action — or actually inaction — gives renewed vigor to the old dictum “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The fact that the judge himself was apparently responsible for the delay in ruling makes the matter even more egregious.

Moreover, the ACLU continues to maintain — quite correctly in my opinion — that the matter isn’t moot at all since the Kahre case is still pending, given that his sentencing is in November and given that he might appeal the conviction.

Thus, I think the judge misses the point — which is that the prosecutors’ subpoenas chill criticism of the government, regardless of whether a verdict has already been reached or not.

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