The majority opinion, authored by Judge Edith Jones, appointed by former President Ronald Regan, finds that local officials were reasonable when they used an obscure Texas law to arrest Gordiloca and thereby criminalize a wide range of what has been considered basic accountability journalism. The ruling applies in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
“Any law enforcement agency basically has a green light right now to go out and arrest and threaten or detain journalists who publish documents that are leaked from the government,” said attorney Daxton “Chip” Stewart, a media law professor at Texas Christian University, in an interview about the ruling. “And … if that journalist spends a night in jail, they don’t have a remedy and can’t sue for a civil rights violation.”
The court sidestepped addressing the Texas law’s constitutionality, and Jones couched her findings on whether Laredo officials knowingly violated Villarreal’s civil rights when they arrested her in 2017.
This is in fact, a much better article and (horrifying texan political hellscape aside) the key except is copied here for convenience:
Begin quote: The Texas statute she was charged under made it a crime to solicit non-public information from a government official with an intent to obtain a benefit. Prosecutors alleged she used the information to amass more Facebook followers.
A Texas state court judge in 2018 tossed the charges, finding the law unconstitutionally vague, and she sued in 2019. A judge ruled the officers and prosecutors were entitled to qualified immunity, but a 2-1 panel reversed in 2021.
But in Tuesday’s ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones, an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan, said law enforcement officers were not required to predict whether the Texas law at issue was constitutional before arresting her.
Looking at the case narrowly, it’s usually reasonable for police to assume laws are constitutional unless a court has ruled otherwise. In this case, however the totality of the circumstances makes it clear that the police were trying to misuse the law to persecute a journalist who was annoying them.
The police should get sued for that, and like nearly half the fifth circuit judges, I disagree with the court’s ruling.
Something’s going to have to give and soon. Police need to carry individual malpractice insurance, where gross negligence results in personal liability, and blanket qualified immunity as a whole needs to go.
No other institution has built a self-licking ice cream cone like law enforcement. The US health care system certainly tries, but at least it doesn’t have a monopoly on the use of force. Until the incentives change, there’s no future where civil relations recover. You just can’t remove liability for bad faith abuse of power and expect an organization to self-police its behavior.
Crushingly ironic that the “don’t tread on me” crowd are the loudest proponents of the wholesale gutting of freedom of the press/speech…