NH Supreme Court Rules On Bigfoot Filmmaker
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 15th, 2012
You may remember the story from 2009. The NH Supreme Court’s ruling has been handed down.
Artist, without the Bigfoot costume, who sued, based on his right for freedom of speech.
The Nashua Telegraph published news of the court ruling:
It’s OK to make a goofy film about Bigfoot on Mount Monadnock without a state permit despite New Hampshire regulations, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
But that’s only because the peak in Jaffrey is so well known that it constitutes “a traditional public forum,” where free speech is especially protected.
That ruling was handed down Friday morning in the much publicized case of Jonathan Doyle, a self-described performance artist who in September 2009 walked around the bustling peak of Mount Monadnock wearing a $40 Bigfoot costume and videotaped interviews with hikers describing their sightings of him.
He put the video on YouTube and drew some attention. But when Doyle, 31, of Keene, returned to make a follow-up video, staff at Monadnock State Park said he needed a state permit to film a movie in the park.
The permit required a $100 fee and a $2 million insurance policy that covers the state of New Hampshire. It had to be applied for at least 30 days in advance.
Doyle sued, saying the requirement was an unconstitutional limit on his freedom of speech, and he promptly drew a whole lot more attention.
Read the rest of the story, here.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Glad to see our courts not wasting their time on stuff like murder!
Choppedlow, murder is already established as a crime, no matter where it occurs. No one is arguing that. This was a constitutional question. Some of those still need to be resolved.