The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 9-7 against citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal who sued Laredo police for damages after they arrested her for publishing identities of suicide and car crash victims that she obtained from a police officer. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court. (Washington Examiner, January 24, 2024, by Kaelan Deese)
In dissent Judge Don Willett criticized the granting of qualified immunity in the case. “[O]ne of the justifications so frequently invoked in defense of qualified immunity—that law enforcement officers need ‘breathing room’ to make ‘split-second judgments’—is altogether absent in this case, wrote Willett, “This was no fast-moving, high-pressure, life-and-death situation. Those who arrested, handcuffed, jailed, mocked, and prosecuted Priscilla Villarreal, far from having to make a snap decision or heat-of-the-moment gut call, spent several months plotting Villarreal’s takedown, dusting off and weaponizing a dormant Texas statute never successfully wielded in the statute’s near-quarter-century of existence.” (Reason, January 24, 2024, by Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy)
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