Isn’t there something about freedom of the press in the Constitution? I thought it was kind of a big thing. I guess not in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts.

Yesterday, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Merita A. Hopkins prohibited WHDH from airing its story.

In court, Paul Hynes, the attorney representing the Boston firefighters’ Local 718, argued that it was a privacy issue and pointed to a 1989 decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court that said medical examiners’ autopsy reports are not public because they are medical records.

That decision reversed a lower court ruling that said autopsies were public record after the Boston Globe sued the state’s chief medical examiner’s office for the autopsies of three patients who died at Bridgewater State Hospital.

Hopkins, who was sworn in as a judge in August 2006, is Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s former chief of staff and was his legal counsel for more than a decade.

Why would the firefighters union care if autopsy records were published anyway? What’s the big deal:

Last night, the Herald published an online report detailing the autopsy results, which found that one of two hero firefighters who died fighting a West Roxbury blaze was legally drunk at the fire while the other had traces of illegal drugs in his bloodstream.

That’s why.

They should run the story and deal with the consequences. And that judge should resign. Her understanding of the Constitution leaves a lot to be desired.