March 21, 2007

"Court Overturns Phone Jamming Conviction"

"A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed the conviction and sentence of a former Republican National Committee official accused in a phone-jamming plot on Election Day 2002.

James Tobin, the former regional chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign, was convicted in 2005 of helping to arrange more than 800 hang-up calls that jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters' union for about an hour. Republican John Sununu defeated then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen for the Senate that day.

But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the statute under which Tobin was convicted "is not a close fit" for what Tobin did and questioned whether the government showed that Tobin intended to harass. A Justice Department spokesman said prosecutors were reviewing the decision, and did not say if they planned to appeal."

Posted by Randy Riddle at March 21, 2007 04:13 PM