Last October, the Supreme Court revived a federal civil rights lawsuit by news blogger Priscilla Villarreal in Laredo, Texas. The judge remanded the case to the US Court of Appeals in the Fifth Circuit, killing her case again yesterday.
Judge Edith Jones, who wrote the 2024 decision to reject Villa Real’s case, is also the author of Tuesday’s ruling. Villarrealv. Laredthis starts with telling you something wrong. According to Jones, Villarreal alleges that in breach of “Tex. Administrator. Code Section 39.06(c), she suffered “unconstitutional retaliation” based on her “speech” obtained from a back-channel police source. Law It is intended to “misuse official information.” That sheen blurs the reality that Villarreal was “incarcerated for basic journalism,” as Jones’ 2024 opinion. reasonBilly Bignon put it in 2023. He was unraveled in a fascinating 2024 video about her case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqmrg0pyrw0
According to Laredo Police and District Attorney Isidro Alanis, Villarreal committed two felonys by asking Officer Barbara Goodman to check details of a public suicide and a fatal car accident. Villarreal Discussed Alanis and the police had it for her as they disliked her “unfiltered style” of journalism and resented her criticism of local law enforcement. This was a speech by Villarreal saying she suffered from “unconstitutional retaliation” in the form of a criminal charge that led her to become Trump. She pointed out that Alaniz et al. I spent several months looking for a fee to pin her before settling on section 39.06(c). When she looked back at herself, “Officer Laredo took a photo of her cell phone.” [her] Handcuffs while laughing at her. ”
Jones lets all of this slip. She doesn’t just put it speech In a horror quote; she falsely claims that the related speech is made up of information that Goodman gave Villarreal. And, as she did in her 2024 opinion, it drips with light emptying against Villarreal’s probably unprofessional “journalistic style,” Jones implies that Villarreal’s report was somehow illegal, as it relied on “back channel police sources” and “interests.” Jones said last year it was “inappropriate” to portray her as a “martist for journalism” given Villarreal’s despicable methods.
That view betrays the fundamental ignorance of how journalism works. Reporters across the country routinely seek information from “back channel” sources, and their news gatherings are protected undisputedly by the First Amendment. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working for the “mainstream, legal” news outlet that Jones likes, trying to “profit” yourself (by attracting an audience that might help boost advertising revenue, for example) or you can be told “to leverage and drive other people’s tragedy in large quantities.” [their] reputation[s] And career[s]”This is how Jones explained his report on Villarreal in 2024.
That earlier opinion – what the Supreme Court left – that was do not have “It’s clearly unconstitutional” to arrest reporters for reporting. The conclusion was very surprising, sparking four energetic opponents written or joined by seven of Jones’ colleagues.
“If constitutional principles should unite us all as Americans, then the government doesn’t have a business of imprisoning citizens for the views they have or the questions they ask,” wrote Judge James C. Ho. Judge James E. Graves Jr. agreed that Villarreal’s arrest was “clearly unconstitutional” and noted “the established right that journalists will engage in everyday news investigations.”
Judge Don Willett argued that the defendant cannot simply argue that he is enforcing the law. “They can be liable to enforce the law in a clearly unconstitutional way so that officers can be liable to enforce the law that is clearly unconstitutional,” he wrote. In fact, Willett looked at the laws that Villarreal sued Alaniz et al. 42 USC 1983“Government officials have declared that if they are acting “under the colour of state law,” they will be liable for violating the Constitution. ”
Jones did not reconsider the issue in Tuesday’s opinion, instead focusing on Villarreal’s retaliatory arrest claim. She noted that the Supreme Court remanded the Villarreal case for “lighting and further consideration.” Gonzalez v. Trevinoa 2024 decision that made it easier for the victims of retaliatory arrests to prove their first constitutional claim. “We have a Supreme Court’s First Amendment Retaliation decision. [Gonzalez] That means this is the only argument that this en banc court should reconsider. But Jones writes. But contrary to what you might expect, she says she will reconsider the claims don’t need to assess their validity (or explain them exactly).
Even if Alanis and the police designed Villarreal’s arrest to punish her with a constitutionally protected speech, Jones says it is “easy to show” that they will be protected by an immunity that is entitled to protect government officials from federal civil rights claims, unless the misconduct is breached. Jones notes that the arrest occurred in 2017, two years before the Supreme Court’s decision. Nievesv. Bartlettacknowledged the exception to the general rule that arrests based on possible causes do not violate the First Amendment.
“The uneven requirement to show that there is no possible cause “substantial stimulus can pose a risk that some police officers may misuse their arrest rights as a way to curb speech,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a majority opinion. He offered Jay Walking as an example. “At many intersections, Jaywalk is endemic, but rarely leads to arrests. If an individual arrested out loud about police conduct is arrested on Jaywalk at such an intersection, it appears to inadequately protect his initial right to rectify his arrest of an individual to be arrested for dismissal of the cause of his personal retaliation.
Judge Neil Gorsuch amplified Roberts’ points with partially agreeing opinions. “The criminal law has grown very enthusiastically, and now covers very innocent behaviors before, and almost anyone can get arrested for something,” he says. I wrote it. “If the state can silence those who silence unpopular ideas rather than the intended purpose of these laws, then there is little freedom of our initial revision left, and we rarely separate us from past tyrants and our own malignant territories.”
The Villarreal case illustrates the scenario accurately. Alanis and the other defendants seized section 39.06(c), a law that local police have never enforced before, to arrest Villarreal for news sales. The history of that law aimed to prevent “job abuse” by punishing the release of confidential information for financial interests, but Alaniz et al. It was do not have They use it for “intended purposes” that had nothing to do with journalists covering the news.
As Ho said last year, “Under section 39.06(c), “no one could identify a single successful prosecutor,” and certainly not opposed to the citizens that she asked the citizens for basic information in the public interest and that she could report accurately to fellow citizens.” The tense statutory interpretation used to justify Villarreal’s arrest implies that Texas reporters committed felony daily by simply doing their job. petition.
The novel nature of the charges against Villarreal, which the state judge ultimately dismissed after he concluded that Section 39.06(c) was unconstitutional, reinforced her argument that they were merely an excuse for revenge. Another judge who opposed last year’s decision to Villarreal, Stephen Higginson, pointed to her allegations that the defendant had charged her. [local authorities] He has not previously been arrested, detained or charged under the law. Neeb The exception “” is because there are no better examples of unforced crimes than this. ”
That’s not important, says Jones, because Villarreal was arrested earlier. Neeb. “At that time, Villarreal made himself subject to the police based on an arrest warrant,” she wrote.
The lawyer who drafted the warrant affidavit intentionally violated the[d]”Villarreal’s constitutional rights.”
In my agreed opinion, Judge Andrew Oldham agrees that the defendant is entitled to exemption under the relevant case law. But he questions the logic of applying the doctrine beyond the “divided 2-second decision making” that the doctrine is commonly involved.
“It is becoming increasingly unclear whether the rationale for eligible immunity makes sense in these cases,” Oldham writes. “In many cases, there is incomplete information and under potentially fatal or dangerous circumstances, when officers are forced to make a split 2-second decision, I understand the need for a qualified disclaimer.[t]Horse arrested, handcuffed, imprisoned, oc-rasted, and charged with Priscilla Villarreal… A few months Plotting the takedown of Villarreal. If an officer has time to develop such a plan, consult an attorney and investigate all the facts, it is unclear whether and to what extent a qualified disclaimer should apply. ”
The majority “has made an immediate decision to lose again despite nearly six years of persistent First Amendment lawsuit that was successful in the High Court,” Higginson complained of the dissent added by four of his colleagues. “The parties involved are Gonzalez I will remand Villarreal’s resurrected lawsuit to the district court and allow for a complete hostile briefing and discussion. The remand is a warning approach to avoid Villarreal’s Pyrahic victory. ”
Higginson points out that the 5th Circuit’s 2024 decision “rejected a request for a binding interpretation of our circuit. Nives Exception: “Readings considered by the Supreme Court as “overly breached.” Gonzalez. “Nottheless, the question is that our EN BANC court did not answer whether Villarreal’s claim of retaliation failed on the basis of qualified immunity,” he wrote. “However, today’s majority immediately decides that with minimal briefing on the matter, the entitled “a simple indication” of the entitled exemption for retaliation claims. ”
Also leaving the case behind, Higginson points out, “the district court will allow us to consider the points raised in some opinions against our court’s previous, currently hiding EN decision.” “These objections have been said to be police arrests criticizing journalists for everyday news investigations. clearly Violates the First Amendment. ”
In the Fifth Circuit, that’s not just a controversial view. It was rejected by the Court of Appeal on uncertain terms and is subject to the freedom of the press, subject to the legal creativity of vengeful police officers and prosecutors.
