Prosecutor wants ban on online court video

In court papers, Norfolk prosecutors said they fear harm to crime victims if the videos become available on the Web.

But John Davidow, who helped create opencourt.us for WBUR, argues that prosecutors are essentially putting government in charge of a news organization in violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

“This is really taking reporting that is done every day and then trying to take the editorial aspects away from journalists and put them in the hands of the state to decide what is published and what is not,’’ Davidow said in a telephone interview.

He added, “once we lawfully covered a story that was published, then it is up to the news organization to decide what to do with that material.’’

Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey, in a statement, said yesterday that he is not pushing for a fight with the media. However, he said - pointing to papers filed by his office with the SJC - by allowing the videos to be posted, the website does not take into account the impact worldwide distribution of a video can have on crime victims.

“Few have worked harder to push for open government than I have, but we should not be hurting victims in the process here,’’ Morrissey said in the statement.

The specific case the two sides are fighting about involves the dangerousness hearing of Norman Barnes, who was arrested by State Police in Quincy after a 15-year-old girl reported he had kidnapped her and forced her into sexual slavery in the greater Boston area.

Barnes has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his defense attorney has told the SJC he is not part of the dispute between opencourt.us and prosecutors, according to court papers.

On May 27, Judge Mark Coven presided in the dangerousness hearing and, over the objections of prosecutors, ordered that opencourt.us could stream the hearing live and record it for later uploading to its Web archive.