If free speech is criminal, there really will be ‘hell to pay’

By Chris Powell

Even the most firmly established constitutional rights often seem to be hanging on by a thread. 

That may be the lesson of the case of William Maisano of Guilford, a retired police officer and former school board candidate who, according to Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers and the Yankee Institute’s journalism project, Connecticut Inside Investigator, could be imprisoned for as much as five years for his conviction on a felony charge of threatening and a misdemeanor charge of breach of peace.

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Maisano’s “crime” seems to have been only his sending an e-mail to the principal of Guilford High School asserting that there would be “hell to pay” if she allowed a teacher to dye her hair in rainbow colors to show support for sexual minorities during the school’s graduation ceremony last June. Maisano saw the rainbow hair plan as more of the political propagandizing in school that he had complained about at Board of Education meetings — propagandizing that indeed is common now in schools throughout the country.

The principal told the local police she was concerned about Maisano’s e-mail. So an officer interviewed Maisano by telephone, and he said he never intended to hurt anyone. He sent another e-mail to school officials explaining that by “hell to pay” he had meant generating unfavorable publicity.

Whereupon the officer closed the case. 

But then the teacher with the rainbow hair complained to the police that she felt dreadfully threatened by Maisano’s e-mail. So this time they arrested Maisano for breach of peace, and when the case got to Superior Court in New Haven, a prosecutor added a charge of felony threatening, perhaps because Maisano insisted on his First Amendment rights and would not plea-bargain.

A trial was held and on Oct. 11 a jury convicted Maisano on both counts. Sentencing is scheduled next week.

Connecticut Inside Investigator notes that court precedents hold that to be a criminal matter threatening must be more specific and constitute more than political hyperbole. So if Maisano has the sense to find a civil-liberties lawyer — someone who does what the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union used to do before succumbing to political correctness — his conviction may be overturned by the first appeals court to hear it.

But a reversal of Maisano’s conviction won’t mean that the danger to freedom of speech in Connecticut has passed. For the case has demonstrated several related dangers.

First is that the case has not been widely publicized by news organizations, though it puts everyone’s rights at risk, including the rights of news organizations themselves, which routinely engage in political controversies.

Second is that the political left has discovered that the quickest way of silencing contrary views is to assert that one feels threatened by them. This is supposed to nullify free speech. Hence the increasing demands, especially in what calls itself higher education, to establish “safe spaces” where no contrary thoughts are allowed.

And third, in convicting Maisano for his disagreeable politics rather than any real danger he posed, the six members of his jury demonstrated a willingness to sign their own rights away. Lacking much appreciation for civil liberties, most people might agree with the jury.

With elegant understatement many years ago Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter noted that “the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not-very-nice people.”

For many years the political left understood this and was the courageous defender of freedom of speech and press. Not anymore. Having tasted power, the left is now more oppressive than the right used to be and enthusiastically advocates censorship by the government, while the right, finding itself on the oppressed side now, has become the defender of free speech.

If political disagreement and hurt feelings become cause for criminal prosecution, as they seem to have become in Connecticut, before long there really may be “hell to pay.” Maybe the new administration of “fascist” Donald Trump will give the left a reason to reconsider its own fascism.

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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)