Last June, we wrote about a Kansas woman, Mary Anne Sause, who had police come to her house to investigate a noise complaint. During the officers’ investigation, she knelt down to pray, at which point the officers ordered her to stop praying and stand up. She sued them, arguing that the officers violated her First Amendment… Read More Kansas Woman Ordered by Police to Stop Praying Will Get Her Day in Court
In February 2017, Ryan Duke was arrested and charged with the murder of Tara Grinstead, who went missing almost 12 years earlier. Tara was a south Georgia high school teacher and beauty queen, and her disappearance and Duke’s subsequent trial attracted substantial media attention. (Indeed, her murder has its own Wikipedia page.) Five days after… Read More Gag Order in Georgia Murder Trial Stuck Down
In 1998, Clarence Easterling, a Wisconsin man, was put on probation after being convicted of sexually assaulting a minor female. Then, three years later, his daughter was born shortly before he was sentenced to 25 years for armed robbery. Easterling has tried both in 2004 and 2013 to get his daughter to visit him, but… Read More Prisons Allowed to Permanently Deny Inmates Visits with Family
In general, the public has a First Amendment right to access court documents in both civil and criminal cases. Larry Flynt lives in Missouri and tried to access confidential (or “sealed”) court records in a death-penalty case. Specifically, he wanted access to documents about Missouri’s death-penalty protocol and medical members of its execution team, questioning… Read More No First Amendment Right of Public Access to Court Documents in Death Penalty Cases
This is another case involving prisons and mail. The Cape Girardeau County Jail in southeast Missouri has a somewhat restrictive mail policy for inmates: incoming non-legal mail may be on postcards only. Although there is no limit to the number of postcards than an inmate may receive (although only 10 at a time may be… Read More Missouri Jail’s “Postcard Only” Policy Upheld
Law-enforcement officers showed up at the house of Merritt Sharp, looking for his son, for whom the officers had an arrest warrant. They mistook Sharp for his son, arrested Sharp, and put him in the back of their squad car. Sharp was livid, “loudly swearing” and “threatening to sue them.” A few minutes later, the… Read More Unconstitutional for Police to Detain California Man for Being “Argumentative”
Glassdoor.com is a website operating with the goal of ensuring transparency between employers and employees. There, employees of various companies can anonymously share information about their employer including interviewing practices, salaries, and the overall employer environment. Before posting any employer reviews, employees are asked for their email address and told that their information will be… Read More Feds May Obtain Anonymous Website Reviewer Personal Info
This is another highway-overpass-protests case. In 2013, in St. Charles, Missouri — about 30 minutes northwest of St. Louis — Jimmy Duane Weed participated in a protest of President Obama’s policies on a highway overpass. Weed and his fellow protestors held signs directed at the traffic beneath them. After the protestors arrived on the overpass,… Read More Police Okay to Remove Protesters from Missouri Highway Overpass
[UPDATE: On June 28, 2018, the Supreme Court reversed the decision described below.] Two police officers went to the home of Mary Anne Sause in Louisburg, Kansas, 40 miles south of Kansas City, to investigate a noise complaint. Sause eventually invited them inside. Sause mentioned the Constitution and Bill of Rights, for which the officers… Read More Kansas Police Okay to Stop Suspect’s Prayer to Arrest Her
This is another case involving the constitutionality of laws that criminalize “disorderly conduct,” this time in Georgia. David Freeman attended a church service and sat in the back. During the service, the pastor asked all teachers present to stand up so that the congregation could recognize and pray for them. Freeman stood up with the… Read More Constitutional for Georgia Man to Give Church Pastor the Finger
Little Falls is a small town along the Mississippi River in central Minnesota. Robin Hensel attended two City Council meetings. She sat in the front row and displayed large signs depicting dead and deformed children, thus blocking the view of some members of the public. The first City Council meeting was adjourned and rescheduled, but Hensel… Read More Part of Minnesota’s Disorderly-Conduct Law Held Unconstitutional
Like most states, Maine is no stranger to abortion-related protests–both pro-life and pro-choice. Sometimes these protests can turn violent. In 1995, Maine enacted a law making it illegal to make noise that can be heard inside a building with the intent “to jeopardize the health of persons receiving health services within the building,” or with… Read More Maine Allowed to Limit Noise Outside Abortion Clinics
The Supreme Court of the United States begins its next term today–the first Monday in October, as it does every year. Right now, the High Court is slated to hear a few First Amendment cases, which are among the most high-profile cases of the term, and the Court could put more First Amendment cases on… Read More First Amendment Cases at the Supreme Court This Term
Wyoming makes it a crime to cross private land (trespass) and “collect resource data” on adjacent public land–a crime that carries a more severe punishment than ordinary trespassing. The law broadly defines both “collect” and “resource data.” The former applies whenever people “take a sample of material” or “acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in… Read More Wyoming Ban on Gathering “Resource Data” Subject to the First Amendment
Nevada Highway Patrol Major Kevin Tice announced a policy prohibiting officers from talking about the K-9 program with anyone outside the department. Some officers complained that Tice’s policy was designed to prevent them from publicizing problems in the K9 program. So they sued Tice, alleging that the policy’s restriction on speech violated the First Amendment.… Read More Police Department’s Policy Banning Discussion of K-9 Program Unconstitutional
Slidell, Louisiana, is a city of about 30,000 people about 35 miles from downtown New Orleans. In the last two years, they received 70 complaints related to panhandling, but police were only able to identify the individuals complained of for 14 of those 70 complaints. In response, the city enacted an ordinance meant to help… Read More New Orleans Suburb Cannot Require Panhandlers to Obtain Permits
Remember the “Occupy” movement/protests from fall 2011? Well some participants in the Chicago chapter of the movement got their (likely) final day in court this summer. Occupy Chicago took place mainly in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, right along Lake Michigan. The city generally didn’t interfere with the movement until over 100 protesters sought “permanent… Read More “Occupy Chicago” Protesters Lose Their Free Speech Challenge After Nearly Six Years
Michael Billioni worked in the central control area of a prison where he could see all the security camera footage–past and present. He saw something disturbing, told his wife (who told a reporter), denied to his boss that he told anyone, later confessed, and then was fired. Now, he’s suing, claiming that he had a First… Read More South Carolina Prison Guard Fired for Whistle-Blowing About Inmate Mistreatment
Jennifer Anderson set up an anonymous blog and Facebook page called “Exposedat.” Her goal was to highlight and question intertwined personal and business relationships involving public officials in her parish in Louisiana. (Louisiana doesn’t have counties; they have “parishes.”) She made a particular set of postings that got her into hot water with the local sheriff.… Read More Louisiana Sheriff Prosecutes Blogger, Likely Violated First Amendment
While Eric Butt was serving time for theft, he wrote a letter to his 5-year-old daughter. The letter included a drawing that showed him holding his daughter’s butt up to his mouth. A speech bubble from her mouth said, “Oouch! Daddy don’t Bite so hard Giggle giggle.” A speech bubble from his mouth said, “Oh… Read More Utah Inmate’s Drawing to Daughter Not Obscene
Nina Baccala stopped by a store in Connecticut one afternoon to transfer some money through Western Union. The store’s manager said she was too late. Nina was not happy; she called the manager “fat” and “ugly” along with several other profanities. She was later convicted of breach of peace and sentenced to 25 days in jail. The Supreme Court of Connecticut… Read More Connecticut Woman’s Profanity-Laced Tirade at Storekeeper Protected
The FBI sometimes seeks the aid of private tech companies. Those companies have sometimes pushed back. Today’s case is the latest chapter. The FBI conducts national-security investigations. No real surprise there. To help them, a federal law authorizes the FBI to send a “national security letter” or “NSL” to a “wire or electronic communication service provider” requesting… Read More FBI’s Gag Orders to Internet Companies Are Constitutional
This is another decision affirming the right to record on-duty police officers in public. The facts here are unsurprising: some people filmed some police officers, the officers didn’t like it, arrested the filmers, filmers sued. Filming police is–as the court said–a “common practice.” Think of all of the on-duty police you’ve seen on film recently:… Read More First Amendment Protects Right to Film On-Duty Police Officers
This case has the potential to be one of the most important First Amendment cases you might never hear about. Lester Packingham plead guilty in 2002 to “taking indecent liberties with a child” for having sex with a 13-year-old girl when he was 21. This made him a registered sex offender. Fast forward 8 years.… Read More North Carolina Cannot Prohibit Sex Offenders from Using Facebook
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