CopBlock Activist Has His Felony Wiretapping (of Police, Among Others) Conviction Overturned

Good news
from the Union Leader in New
Hampshire regarding an activist with the group Cop Block,
dedicated to exposing and blocking bad police practicies:

The New Hampshire Supreme Court threw out the felony wiretapping
convictions of the founder of CopBlock.org, a group that claims it
polices the police, saying the judge made a mistake in instructing
the jury, an error serious enough the jury could have found Adam
Mueller innocent.

Mueller, 31….was convicted of secretly recording telephone
conversations he had with a Manchester police captain, the
Manchester West High School principal and her assistant in 2011 and
spent three months in jail.

He was seeking their comments on a video he posted on YouTube
that showed a confrontation between West High student Frank
Harrington III, 17, and police detective Darren Murphy in the
school’s cafeteria. Harrington was charged with disorderly conduct
and resisting arrest…

Mueller, a Free Stater who goes by the name “Ademo Freeman,”
posted the telephone recordings online….

The Supreme Court, in its decision released Tuesday, said
Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. Brown erred
when he instructed the jury that a violation of the felony
wiretapping statute requires a mental state of “purposely,” when
the statute specifically identifies “wilfully” as the applicable
mental state.

Under state law, “wilful” means the defendant must act with an
intentional or reckless disregard for the lawfulness of his
conduct. In other words, the defendant has not violated the law if
he has a “good faith” belief his conduct was lawful, according to
the unanimous decision written by Justice Robert J. Lynn.

The court said the erroneous instruction likely affected the
outcome of the proceedings and to allow the convictions to stand
“would seriously affect the fairness and integrity of judicial
proceedings.”