Legal experts differ on case

Legal experts from around the country yesterday gave divided opinions of the legality of last week's theft of nearly 14,000 copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian by a group of students. While there was agreement that the theft would not qualify as constitutionally-protected free expression if it was a crime, there was a marked difference of opinion as to whether the confiscation was actually criminal. A statement released yesterday by "Members of The Black Community" -- which claimed responsibility for the confiscation -- maintained that the "decision to help ourselves to free copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian was in no way an illegal or criminal act." The statement also said the act was protected by the First Amendment, "which protects legitimate speech or conduct intended to convey a specific message." Abbe Smith, deputy director of the Criminal Justice Inistitute at Harvard University, defined theft as "taking something that has value without permission, with the intent of permanently depriving the rightful owner." Smith, also a lecturer in law at Harvard, said that since copies of the DP are made available for students to take, it is impossible to say that the students who took the papers were not the "rightful owners" of the copies. She said she thinks it is irrelevant that the students threw the copies into dumpsters. "What's the difference between someone who reads the paper and throws it in the dumpster, and someone who doesn't read it and throws it in the dumpster?" she said. But Bill Greenhalgh, director of the Georgetown Law Center's Criminal Justice Clinic, said he thinks the confiscation was a crime because the paper has value. "Even the paper upon which [the DP is] printed costs money," he said. Michael McConnell, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said the students who took the papers cannot successfully argue that their protest was legal by citing First Amendment protection. "It is true that criminal acts may not be punished because of the message that they convey," he said. "But that does not mean that people can commit crimes with impunity because they are conveying a message. "People are being arrested and jailed every day in front of abortion clinics because of that issue," he added.

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