NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - An Occupy Wall Street
protester has lost his bid to quash a subpoena seeking his
Twitter records from last fall, when he was arrested during a
mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr., who is
overseeing a special courtroom dedicated to handling nearly
2,000 Occupy-related cases, ruled that Malcolm Harris did not
have standing to challenge the third-party subpoena. Prosecutors
from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office served the
subpoena on Twitter in January, requesting Harris' user
information and more than three months' worth of tweets.
The judge compared Harris to a bank account holder who by
law cannot challenge a subpoena of his records served on his
bank.
"Twitter's license to use the defendant's Tweets means that
the Tweets the defendant posted were not his," the judge wrote
in a decision filed Friday.
Sciarrino's ruling -- which featured a handful of hashtags
such as, "That motion is #denied" -- could bolster similar
subpoenas that prosecutors have served on Twitter seeking
records from other Occupy protesters.
Even though Harris lacked standing, Sciarrino said
prosecutors had met the "low" legal threshold required to issue
a subpoena.
In particular, he said prosecutors had shown that the tweets
could have relevance to the case against Harris, by calling into
question his "anticipated defense" that police officers led
protesters onto the bridge before arresting them in October.
Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, who is
representing Harris and filed the motion to quash, said he was
planning to file a motion to reargue.
"I think the judge is incorrect in his understanding of the
law," he said.
The district attorney's office declined comment Monday,
referring to its brief in opposition to the motion.
The case is People v. Harris, Criminal Court of the City of
New York, No. 2011NY080152.
For the prosecution: Assistant District Attorney Lee
Langston
For Harris: Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild
(Reporting by Joseph Ax)
Follow us on Twitter: @ReutersLegal