Supreme Court upholds immunity for officers in lawsuit over arrest ruled to be wrongful
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal of a Texas-based online citizen journalist who said she was wrongly arrested in a case that drew attention from national media organizations and free speech advocates.
The justices left in place a divided federal appeals court ruling that found journalist Priscilla Villarreal, known online as La Gordiloca, could not sue police officers and other officials over her arrest for seeking and obtaining nonpublic information from police.
| WEBINAR: How agencies operationalize real-time policing
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing, “It should be obvious that this arrest violated the First Amendment.”
The high court has previously directed the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Villareal’s case in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in another case from Texas. In June 2024, the justices gave a former local elected official another chance to pursue her lawsuit claiming she too was wrongly arrested.
In that case, Sylvia Gonzalez, a former city council member in the San Antonio suburb of Castle Hills, said she was arrested in retaliation as part of a dispute with a political rival.
But the 5th Circuit essentially stood by its earlier ruling and this time, the justices declined to intervene without explanation. “The Fifth Circuit has doubled down on granting officials free rein to turn routine news reporting into a felony,” Villareal’s lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court appeal.
A state judge had previously dismissed the criminal case against Villareal, saying the law used to arrest her in 2017 was unconstitutional. She then sought to sue the officials for damages. The full 5th Circuit ruled 9-7 that officials Villarreal sued in Laredo and Webb County were entitled to legal immunity.
Villarreal had sought — and obtained from a police officer — the identities of a person who killed himself and a family involved in a car accident and published the information on Facebook. The arrest affidavit said she sought the information to gain Facebook followers.
A fire truck responding to a separate incident was struck by a passenger jet as it landed; the pilot and copilot were killed, and two Port Authority Police officers were treated for broken bones
Video from the incident shows the suspect initially surrendering to Yuba City officers before resisting, fleeing and arming himself with a shovel
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office’s disciplinary committee found that Deputy Aileen Jimenez Barboza violated multiple department policies in the shooting death of Levincer Swanson
“Shots Fired” hosts broke down the lawsuit tied to a 2022 search warrant at rapper Afroman’s Ohio home, weighing search warrant tactics, privacy expectations and why the case became a viral punchline
Source link
