A federal appeals court today upheld a two-week suspension of Randolph's fire chief for discussing budget restraints at a press conference in front of a fatal fire.

Randolph selectmen suspended Charles Foley for seeming to link Proposition 2 1/2 to the deaths. Foley appealed in court, arguing that violated his First Amendment rights.

In a ruling today, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said that while public employees do not lose their First Amendment rights when they take their jobs, they can only exercise them in circumstances where members of the public could do so as well. Being dressed in a chief's uniform, in front of a still active fire scene, is not one of those, and selectmen had the right to consider Foley's comments to be inappropriate reflections of official town policy:

We emphasize that our holding is limited to the particular facts of this case. Under the circumstances of the press conference discussed above, there could be no doubt that Foley was speaking in his official capacity and not as a citizen. However, as the district court noted, had Foley voiced his concerns and frustrations in another forum -- at a town meeting, in a letter to the editor, or even in a statement to the media at a different time and/or place -- we might characterize his speech differently.

Laura reports a writer for Boston Examiner lifted, word for word, a recap she wrote of the season opener of the Boston Derby Dames roller-derby league (in which she skates under the name Mona Mour).

She posted it under her name and her photo ... with only a small, italicized attribution at the bottom. No link. No permission.

She updates to report the site did take down the article and apologized.

In the second of two gun-related rulings today, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected a New Bedford man's effort to have gun-possession charges thrown out on the theory that state laws that require gun permits are now unconstitutional.

As in a case involving gun safety, the state's highest court ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals in Massachusetts, and that unlike federal courts, Massachusetts courts have never held that a comparable section of the state constitution grants individuals the right to pack heat.

Nathanel DePina was convicted in 2008 of illegal possession of guns and ammunition after state troopers, investigating an apparent shooting, found him running from the scene and, when they stopped him, heard a metal clank on the sidewalk and then picked up the gun he'd apparently attempted to discard.

In his appeal, DePina argued that a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, in which a Washington, DC gun-control law was overturned, eliminates the need to obtain a permit to own a gun in Massachusetts and therefore voids the law under which he was charged. The court disagreed:

The defendant's argument rests on the assumption that the protection of the Second Amendment applies to the States as a matter of substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the reasons stated in Commonwealth v. Runyan, we conclude that, based on current Federal law, the Second Amendment does not apply to the States, either through the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of substantive due process or otherwise. Because the Second Amendment does not apply to the States, the defendant's claim that [state gun laws], and the licensing scheme the statute enforces, infringe on his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms must fail.

The defendant's challenge likewise fails under our Massachusetts Constitution, which recognizes no individual right to keep and bear arms.

The justices also rejected DePina's claim that his conviction should be tossed because it was based in part on a certificate that the object police found was a working gun, which he argued violated his rights under another Supreme Court ruling that defendants have the right to confront the authors of such certificates in court. The court ruled that, unlike with convictions overturned by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, there was enough other evidence related to the gun to find DePina guilty even without the certificate.

Complete ruling.

In a victory for police, district attorneys and other gun-control advocates, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled today a state requirement to secure stored guns does not violate the Second Amendment - because an individual's right to bear arms only applies to federal jurisdictions, not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The ruling comes in the case of a Billerica man whose son had ready access to his hunting rifle - which police discovered when they went to investigate why the kid was firing a BB gun at a neighbor's house. Richard Runyan was charged with failing to keep the rifle stored safely as required by state law. A lower-court judge dismissed the charge under a 2007 Supreme Court decision that invalidated Washington, DC's gun-control law.

But the SJC today ordered the charge reinstated:

Based on current Federal law ... we cannot say that the Second Amendment applies to the States, either through the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of substantive due process or otherwise.

Just to be on the safe side, however, the court also said Massachusetts law differs fundamentally from the DC law because it only applies to guns not in the owner's immediate possession - such as guns stored under a bed where a kid could get them - while the DC law required people to lock their guns even while carrying them. The Supreme Court decision formally recognized the right of an individual to carry a gun.

Complete ruling.