The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned the criminal-harassment conviction of a Middleborough man who slowly drove his pickup in front of a woman's house every day for months as her kids were getting off the school bus, even after police asked him to knock it off and he agreed and then kept doing it.

Part of the state's evidence against James McDonald of Middleborough was that the woman reported he would stare at her or her neighbors as he prowled around. The court, however, said that a stare is not enough:

We are reluctant to imbue "staring" with any sinister connotation in the absence of an objective basis-- such as a description of something particular in the defendant's facial expression, verbal expression, or body language--from which such a subjective assessment could have been made. Nor was there other evidence--such as a change in the defendant's demeanor over time that might have provided a frame of reference for the defendant's subsequent behavior--from which the inference of a malevolent attitude could be drawn.

According to the court decision, after a neighbor of the woman took down his plate number, a Middleborough police officer found him and paid him a visit, suggesting that he stay off the street. McDonald agreed, but then kept showing up there. He was arrested several days later, after an encounter with the woman and a friend:

On May 15 [2009], a family friend, whose children were friends of the complainant's three children, and who was aware of her concerns, followed the school bus to the complainant's street and pulled into the complainant's driveway, where she was standing. The children had just gotten off the bus. The defendant drove by and the friend saw the defendant "stare at" the complainant. The friend attempted to follow the defendant, but lost him and returned to the complainant's residence. Within ten minutes, the defendant drove by again, in the same direction as before; the friend saw him "staring at the house again." The complainant yelled "Hey, what do you think you're doing?" and the defendant stopped his truck. The friend approached and asked the defendant what he was doing; the defendant said he was "just taking pictures of dogs." The complainant also approached the truck. The defendant, addressing the complainant, stated he was sorry to bother her, repeated that he was just taking photographs of her dogs, and said he was going to write her a letter including the photographs. The complainant's friend told the defendant that if he saw the defendant on the street again, the defendant would "have a problem." The defendant said, "Okay," and drove off. The complainant, who was "hysterical" and crying, contacted the police.

Although the court acknowledged the woman felt fear - part of the requirement for a criminal-harassment charge - it said McDonald never gave the woman any evidence he would attempt to do anything to her:

Although the defendant's conduct may fairly be described as intentional--in the sense that he drove the route according to a set plan--there is no evidence, nor can any reasoned inference be drawn from the evidence, that the defendant's attention or interest was particularly focused on the complainant and that he intended that she be aware of his attention, or that he otherwise harbored any wrongful or unlawful motive. There was no evidence to support a reasonable inference that the defendant was doing more than looking at a house and taking photographs of dogs in the front yard from a location on a public street. Missing was any evidence of a connection to the complainant, or of prior conduct or communication that, together with seemingly innocuous acts, might have lent them a more sinister air. The act of regularly driving on a public street, looking at people in their driveways or on their porches, or at their dogs and gardens, cannot alone support conviction of a wilful and malicious act directed at a specific person.

• Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. James R. McDonald

The shrinking Phoenix Media Group still has one possible ace in the hole - a patent lawsuit against Facebook that, if successful, would give it ownership over one of the most fundamental parts of social networking.

At issue is a patent held by Phoenix subsidiary People2People on the concept of creating a personal page on a Web site.

People2People, then known as Tele-Publishing, Inc., sued Facebook in 2009, because Facebook, of course, lets users build personal pages.

If the Phoenix wins the suit, the IPO could mean buckets of cash in damages for the Phoenix, which in recent weeks has been busy shedding pieces of itself, most recently WFNX.

Or maybe the newly cash-infused Facebook could simply pay the Phoenix to make the suit go away, in the form of a lucrative licensing deal - in much the same way the Phoenix got several alt weeklies to license another Phoenix patent.

The Phoenix lawsuit seemed about ready to collapse last year when a federal patent examiner ruled the patent invalid based on earlier work involving the creation of online profiles. But earlier this year, the federal Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences reinstated the patent, saying the earlier work cited by the examiner did not really let users change the look of their profile pages or control who gets to see those pages, as the Phoenix patent does.

To date, however, Facebook has shown little inclination to back down. Not long after the Phoenix filed its suit, Facebook countered with its own patent suit, alleging that, among other things, a Phoenix search engine that lets users specify exactly what sort of sex acts they want to see in X-rated videos violates a Facebook search patent.

In both lawsuits, judges ordered the two sides to try to resolve their cases through mediation. And in both cases, the two sites recently reported they were unable to reach agreement.

The former Our Lady of the Presentation School, shut by the Archdiocese of Boston in 2005, hosts a celebration of its rebirth as the Presentation School Foundation Community Center, with a dedication at 3:30 p.m. followed by a party until 8 p.m.

The center now offers health screenings, daycare and preschool programs and community meeting space.

The archdiocese shut the school toward the end of the school year in 2005, locking out students and teachers - and locking in some goldfish in at least one classroom. Protest marches led to 16 months of negotiation and, finally, an agreement to sell the building to a newly formed foundation, which spent eight years raising funds and rehabbing the building. The city kicked in $400,000 for the work; Mayor Menino will be on hand today, as well Brighton resident and Secretary of State Bill Galvin.

Jackson: Not happyA skeptical group of city councilors urged school officials today to reconsider a school-moving plan that would send a Mission Hill elementary school to Jamaica Plain. The full council could vote on the issue at its regular meeting next week.

At a hearing on the proposal today, City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) said the $19 million school BPS wants the city council to approve for loans - down from an earlier $21-million estimate - could be used to leverage additional state school construction money to simply build a brand-new school, reducing the number of students in 19th and early 20th-century buildings. State officials are currently sitting on payments for the renovation of Hyde Park High School, because BPS shut the school not long after renovating it.

"It really makes me angry that we've been given miserable choices amongst horrible options," Jackson said of the plan, in which Fenway High School would move to the Mission Hill K-8 building, the Boston Arts Academy would take over the Ipswich Street space it now shares with Fenway, the New Mission High School and Boston Community Leadership Academy would move to Hyde Park and a new Margarita Muniz Academy would move into the Agassiz School in JP along with Mission Hill.

"For the second year in a row, we have put some of the most engaged parent communities against one another," he said, referring to the previous year's decision to shut 10 schools. He added he's concerned city officials will have to have the same exact discussion next year, after the mayor and Superintendent Carol Johnson release yet another proposal for revamping school assignment.

Johnson acknowledged a small group of students would be adversely affected but said a far large number of students would benefit from this "Access to Excellence" plan, in which schools that have done well - and have the waiting lists to prove it - would be allowed to expand. She said her staff had looked at alternatives - such as moving Fenway High to JP instead of Mission Hill K-8 - but they just didn't work.

Nearly half the money in the plan would go to expand and retrofit the Mission Hill School for uses as high school. Johnson and Fenway Headmaster Peggy Kemp said Fenway needs to stay near the Longwood Medical Area, where its students can take classes at colleges there, such as Emmanuel. Moving the school to the Agassiz - proposed by Councilor Mike Ross (Mission Hill) would jeopardize that because it's too far away.

But Councilor Mike Ross (Mission Hill) urged Johnson not to strip the elementary school out of its neighborhood, warning officials would ultimately be judged on how they treated "the least among us." He called on his fellow councilors to resist lobbying from the mayor's office.

Several Mission Hill parents attended the hearing to urge councilors to reject the funding plan.

Councilors Felix Arroyo (at large), Ayanna Pressley (at large) and Charles Yancey (Dorchester) also expressed concerns. Councilor Mark Ciommo (Allston/Brighton) said he sympathized with the parents, but said a similar series of moves in his district a few years back wound up to have worked out well.