[Peace] Chicago Tribune Article: Rights, eavesdropping law collide in filmmakers' case

[Rachael E. Dietkus]

Rights, eavesdropping law collide in filmmakers' case

By Jon Yates | Tribune staff reporter
October 7, 2004

Armed with hand-held video cameras, Patrick Thompson and Martel Miller spent 
months this summer recording traffic stops by Champaign-area police, hoping 
the footage would foster discussions about how the officers interact with 
the African-American community.

They certainly succeeded at that.

In a saga playing out Downstate, Miller and Thompson had their film 
confiscated by police, then were charged by prosecutors under Illinois' 
eavesdropping law.

Under community pressure, police and the city manager persuaded prosecutors 
to drop charges against one of the men, but Thompson remains charged.

On Wednesday, hours before their documentary film aired on the local public 
TV station, the American Civil Liberties Union joined the fray, filing a 
court brief asking a county judge to drop the charges against Thompson.

"The charges against Mr. Thompson reflect an abuse of Illinois' 
eavesdropping statute," said Adam Schwartz, staff counsel with the ACLU, who 
called the charges unconstitutional and the state's eavesdropping law poorly 
written.

"This eavesdropping statute is a bomb waiting to go off in the hands of an 
overzealous prosecutor," Schwartz said. "One could imagine a million literal 
applications of the state eavesdropping statute that would be atrocious."

In September, both Thompson and Miller were charged with eavesdropping after 
prosecutors determined their taping violated state law because they did not 
obtain consent from the people they were taping.

Although the charges against Miller were dropped several weeks later, 
Thompson remains in jail on both the eavesdropping charge and charges of 
home invasion and sexual abuse from an unrelated case. His wife, Maria 
Thompson, said he is being unfairly singled out because he is a known police 
critic.

Prosecutors disagree and say he was arrested because he broke the law.

Thompson's saga began in May, when he and Miller began filming their 
documentary. Miller, 43, said that for years, members of Champaign's black 
community have complained that they are unfairly targeted by police, and he 
figured the videotaping would both keep police in check and create a record 
of how blacks are treated.

"We were just doing the documentary so that we could have dialogue," Miller 
said. "Before I even started videotaping, I watched about 20 stops. With 
African-Americans, they don't just get stopped, they get arrested."

The two men taped dozens of police stops over the next several months 
without incident but ran into trouble on the night of Aug. 7. After Miller 
taped police issuing a citation to an African-American bicyclist for riding 
without a headlight, police seized Miller's video camera.

Later, after Thompson and Miller submitted their documentary to Urbana 
Public Television, prosecutors confiscated that, too, and charged the two 
with eavesdropping following a Champaign County grand jury indictment Sept. 
2.

Champaign County State's Atty. John Piland said the problem was not that 
Miller and Thompson were videotaping the stops--but that they were also 
recording what police and citizens were saying without their permission.

Under Illinois law, it is illegal to record conversations unless everyone 
involved gives consent. Other states allow conversations to be recorded if 
only one person--including the person conducting the taping--gives consent.

Legal experts say state legislators toughened the law 10 years ago, removing 
an exemption that had allowed conversations to be recorded if they took 
place in public. Now, Schwartz said, the law is so strict, it could 
technically be applied in many instances, including when news crew 
surreptitiously videotape and audiotape a mugging or police beating.

"What I think is critical is the conversations [Miller and Thompson] 
recorded were in public places, on public streets and these were people 
talking in normal voices. They weren't whispering," Schwartz said. "The 1st 
Amendment protects the right to record police in public places."

Piland withdrew charges against Miller several weeks ago after Champaign 
City Manager Steve Carter and Police Chief R.T. Finney wrote him requesting 
the eavesdropping charges against both men be dropped.

Carter said he wrote the letter because he felt the charges had already 
resulted in the desired effect--a discussion about what is and what is not 
acceptable when it comes to public taping.

Still, eavesdropping charges against Thompson remain, in part, Piland said, 
because he faces other, more serious charges. In such cases, Piland said, 
prosecutors generally wait until the more serious case is resolved before 
tackling the lesser charge.

In the meantime, the 40-minute tape Thompson and Miller made was returned to 
the public access station, which ran it Wednesday, almost a month after it 
was originally supposed to air.

Maria Thompson said she believes neither her husband nor Miller should have 
been charged with eavesdropping in the first place.

"They're unfairly targeting a group and two individuals who are trying to 
make change," she said. "Yeah, the change is controversial, but you need 
adversity to make change."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0410070119oct07,1,2707396.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune





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Rachael E. Dietkus, Program Coordinator
YWCA of the University of Illinois
1001 South Wright Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Work Phone - 217-344-0721
E-mail - rdietkus at hotmail.com
Online - www.ywca.org