
USCA1 Opinion

	




        January 9, 1996         [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]                            UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                                FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT                                                      ____________________        No. 95-1385                              WILLIAM THOMAS MIDDLETON,                                Plaintiff, Appellant,                                          v.                              ELIZABETH SUTTON, ET AL.,                                Defendants, Appellees.                                 ____________________                     APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT                        FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE                    [Hon. Paul J. Barbadoro, U.S. District Judge]                                             ___________________                                 ____________________                                        Before                                Selya, Cyr and Boudin,                                   Circuit Judges.                                   ______________                                 ____________________            William Thomas Middleton on brief pro se.            ________________________            William L.  Chapman and Orr  and Reno, Prof.  Assoc. on brief  for            ___________________     ____________________________        appellees.                                 ____________________                                 ____________________                      Per Curiam.  The plaintiff, now  serving a term for                      __________            possession  of  child  pornography,  was  the  subject  of  a            television program that portrayed him as one who had sexually            abused and exploited his  own children.  In this  jury waived            libel action by  the plaintiff against those  involved in the            program, the  district court ruled on  summary judgment that,            whether  the program was accurate  or not, the defendants had            met  the local libel  rules by exercising  reasonable care in            their   investigation.    See,   e.g.,  Duchesnaye  v.  Munro                                      ___    ____   __________      _____            Enterprises, Inc.,  125 N.H.  244, 251 (1984);  accord, e.g.,            _________________                               ______  ____            Kassel v. Gannet Co., 875 F.2d 935, 943 (1st Cir. 1989).  For            ______    __________            the reasons given  by the  district court, we  agree that  no            factual  issue  was  presented  as  to  the  adequacy  of the            investigation on those charges.                      The  television program  itself, despite  a shallow            pretence  at serious reporting, was -- as to the plaintiff --            a highly colored and inflammatory version of the events.  But            there seems to have been at least some evidence for, and some            investigation  of, various  key charges.   The  most dramatic            exception  was the suggestion, for which we have been offered            no evidence whatever, that  plaintiff served in a pornography            ring  that was  involved  in the  murder  of children.    But            plaintiff   himself  failed  to   stress  this  murder  claim            adequately in opposing summary judgment, it went  unmentioned                                         -2-            by  the district  judge,  and we  think  it  is too  late  to            resurrect it now.                      Affirmed.                      ________                                         -3-
