New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella might be a great guy to watch the game with or drink a beer. Maybe he plays an instrument (wasn’t everyone in New England in a garage band at least once?). Decent singing voice? Donates to puppy rescue shelters? Hands out sandwiches at homeless camps. I have no clue, so (in other words) I don’t know the guy, but that’s not what we’re about. None of this is personal – at least not for me – even though people take it that way, and I get why they would. But I mean this in the kindest, job-related citizen-to-public servant way you can imagine.
The civil complaint alleges that on June 5, 2024, Hobbs trespassed upon and later destroyed the property of the victim, P.B., when he removed a sign that had been lawfully placed on public property in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Several signs had been placed by members of the public at the same location, but Hobbs only removed a new sign that read, “Goffstown Pride,” and expressed support for the LGBTQ+ community. Hobbs damaged the property when he disposed of and likely destroyed the sign. The complaint further alleges that animus on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity motivated the trespass and damage to the sign and that Hobbs’s actions interfered with the victim’s rights and lawful activities.
The AG’s claim is based on his interpretation of RSA 354-B:1, which, as we’ve noted in the past, has some issues.
354-B:1 Civil Rights Enforcement. –
I. All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions and the laws of the United States and New Hampshire without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or any other person or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on property when such actual or threatened conduct is motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability. “Threatened physical force” and “threatened damage to or trespass on property” is a communication, by physical conduct or by declaration, of an intent to inflict harm on a person or a person’s property by some unlawful act with a purpose to terrorize or coerce.
Much the way the AG’s Office stretched the meaning of this chapter in an effort to link a lawful First Amendment exercise – regardless of whether you agree or approve of the message – with some sort of hate speech violation of 354-B:1 (the courts spanked his ass) this reeks of a fishing expedition.
It’s different bait but the same goal. Create a hate speech crack into which it can then go to war on whomever it chooses. The court ruling in the NSC-131 case seemed like a close enough shot across the AG’s bow, but apparently not.
Mind Reading
Yes, there appears to have been targeting (of the sign and its message). “Property” was removed (taken or destroyed). That is unlawful. But the sign was on public property, so assuming the attack was “on a person” and not the message strikes me as another stretch. No person was present to be violated. The defendant may or may not know the individual who placed it. It could just as well have been a heterosexual who planted the Pride message (lots of them do), and the Defendant could claim as much – at which point- even if the case were not already on shaky ground, the assumption that an individual’s sexual civil rights were violated ceases to exist.
Even if you can prove the defendant knew the sign’s “owner,” we’re again left with this ridiculous assumption.
In committing this act, Defendant both trespassed upon and did damage to
the victim’s property. Defendant trespassed on the victim’s property when he went onto
public property, bypassed the other numerous signs at the intersection of Route 114 and
Route 114A, and intermeddled with the victim’s sign by removing only the victim’s sign
without license to do so. …
In the NSC-131 case, the AG pressed the matter of trespassing in a public place where they have just as much right to be as the sign. It is not legally possible to trespass in a public space unless some authority ordered you out of it with good reason, and you failed to comply, and that was not the case here (as far as we can tell).
Clean This Mess Up
I like to remind readers that I’m not a lawyer or a state prosecutor (or a doctor or an engineer or a pharmacist, etc.), and I’m not, so what do I know? But this is what’s essential to the State of New Hampshire. There’s nothing more pressing or important with which to focus our attention.
And I’m not saying the AG can’t win the case; that depends on the defendant’s lawyer(s), and the judge, and whether the State’s “prosecutorial history” is admissible as evidence of its character, but this looks like another fishing expedition to me – a waste of time and tax money.
Perhaps we need a new AG, or the Legislature could tighten up the Civil Rights Clause to stop these types of prosecutions. I made what I think is a very reasonable suggestion here.
“All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions and the laws of the United States and New Hampshire without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on their property.“
Which I followed with,
The word “persons” defines everyone without regard to any other metric. We all have these rights because the Constitution should be blind to every other detail. Anyone who tells you otherwise is injecting demographic division for some political perversion; to create crevices into which government can chip away at fundamental liberties.
I think you could charge 56-year-old Frank Hobbs Jr. with theft or destruction of private property, but then you might have to do that for everyone, and there are many “sign thieves” in New Hampshire. Is that why the AG has gone with the civil rights offense? We wouldn’t want the state to set any prosecutorial precedent concerning sign vandals who do their best work around election time.