Massimino v. Benoit

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Date Filed: Aug. 18, 2025

Background: In 2018, police officers in Waterbury, Connecticut, arrested Keith Massimino after he declined to provide his identification as he was making a video recording of the exterior of the police station from a public sidewalk. The resulting charge against Massimino for interfering with police was ultimately dismissed by the Connecticut Superior Court.

In 2021, Massimino filed a civil rights suit against the arresting officers for interfering with his First Amendment right to observe and record from a public space. 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut held that the officers had qualified immunity, which allows public officials to escape liability for constitutional violations if no prior case clearly established that their conduct was unconstitutional, and therefore dismissed the lawsuit. It also questioned whether there was a First Amendment right to record the exterior door of the juveniles division of the police building. Massimino appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Our Position: In a friend-of-the-court brief, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Dow Jones urge the Second Circuit to reverse the district court’s ruling and confirm the well-established First Amendment right to record in a public place.

• The ability of the press to gather news and inform the public depends on the well-settled right to record in public places, which includes recording a government building from a public sidewalk.

• The right to record in public is not limited to the press but ensures that the press can obtain and report the news.

From the Brief: “The District Court’s decision, if allowed to stand, will hinder the ability of the news media to gather the news and provide the public with information of significant public interest, and in so doing, would make this circuit an outlier in its treatment of the right to record in public spaces.”