Asheville journalists seek to have trespassing convictions overturned

In a brief recently filed with the state Court of Appeals on behalf of two journalists convicted of trespassing while covering police actions in Asheville, the director of Duke University School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic called the convictions “a dangerous step toward the evisceration of freedom of the press in North Carolina.”

Journalists charged with trespassing while reporting are rarely taken to trial. In the past 10 years, at least 21 reporters across the U.S. were arrested for trespassing. Five of those cases were taken to trial. And two of those five were Veronica Coit and Matilda Bliss. [NC Newsline reporter Joe Killian was arrested in 2016 while trying to cover the actions of the General Assembly when police arrested demonstrators in the House gallery along with any other individuals who declined to leave. He was not prosecuted.]

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