INDIANA COURT OF APPEALS COULD RULE AS EARLY AS THIS SUMMER ON A CASE THAT MAY REGULATE/LIMIT FIRST AMENDMENT POLITICAL SPEECH.

Dan Brewington’s appellant brief states “Aaron Negangard, the Dearborn County Prosecutor, took personal umbrage with Brewington exercising his First Amendment rights and silenced him by indicting Brewington with three misdemeanors and three felonies”…

No civil action was ever taken by the “victims”. None of the “victims” ever sought a restraining order and no court has ever ordered any of the alleged “intimidating” speech taken down from the Internet. Trial court Judge Brian D. Hill claimed Brewington was not a good candidate for probation saying that Brewington would just blog about the probation department. 

The attempts by the Indiana Judicial System to control internet speech could not be clearer. Dearborn County Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard told the jury that Brewington wrote too much. If the Court of Appeals affirms the trial court’s ruling political speech will be subject to prosecution at the discretion of prosecutors and judges.

Dan Brewington criticized the family court system and county government in Dearborn County, Indiana, on the internet.  Brewington was convicted of Intimidating a Judge, Judge James D. Humphrey with absolutely no threat of physical violence. Dan Brewington received a $600,000 bond and was later convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for publically criticizing judges and public officials. Now a man with no criminal history, no history of violence, and no history of drug or alcohol abuse sits in an Indiana State Prison. Some of the issues currently before the Appellate Court, found in the appellant’s brief filed May 22, 2012, are as follows:

Improper use of an anonymous jury

Erroneous instructions to the jury

Insufficient evidence

Ineffective counsel

Evidentiary errors

Constitutional limitations on intimidation

Abuse of discretion

Convictions under Counts I and IV Violate Double Jeopardy

Perjury Conviction, "affirming this conviction would condone the prosecutor's misconduct."

 

The appellant’s brief can be found at http://www.danbrewington.blogspot.com/2012/05/brewingtons-appellant-brief-re-filed.html

Please visit www.danbrewington.blogspot.com for continuing updates and a more in depth history of the case. Dan’s family can be contacted at contactdanbrewington@gmail.com