whether-it-obviously-violates-the-first-amendment-to-arrest-someone-for-asking-government-officials-questions-and-publishing-the-information-they-volunteer

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Respondents are police officers and prosecutors who sent Petitioner Priscilla Villarreal to jail for asking a police officer for facts and then reporting what the officer volunteered. Those officials plotted the local journalist’s arrest not for any legitimate purpose, but to silence a vocal critic. Inanine-to-seven en banc decision with four dissenting opinions, the Fifth Circuit held the officials have qualified immunity. The Fifth Circuit concluded it was reasonable to arrest Villarreal for routine news reporting under a Texas felony statute no local official had enforced in its 23-year history. In dissent, Judge Ho explained that the majority “treat[s] the First Amendment as a secondclass right” and “contradicts” this Court’s holdings that “subject arrests to First Amendment scrutiny.” App. 77a, 80a. The Fifth Circuit’s decision also conflicts with multiple circuits that have held officials are not entitled to qualified immunity when they use state statutes in ways that criminalize undoubted First Amendment rights. The questions presented are: 1. Whether it obviously violates the First Amendment to arrest someone for asking government officials questions and publishing the information they volunteer. 2. Whether qualified immunity is unavailable to public officials who use a state statute in a way that obviously violates the First Amendment, as decisions from the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits have held, or whether qualified immunity shields those officials, as the Fifth Circuit held below. u PARTIES TO THE PROCEEEDING Petitioner Priscilla Villarreal was the plaintiff in the district court and the appellant in the Fifth Circuit. Respondents Isidro R. Alaniz, Marisela Jacaman, Claudio Trevino Jr., Juan L. Ruiz, Deyanira Villarreal, and Does 1-2 were individual defendants in the district court and appellees in the Fifth Circuit. Defendant City of Laredo was a municipal entity defendant in the district court and appellee in the Fifth Circuit at the panel stage. Villarreal’s dismissed claim against the City was not part of the rehearing en banc. Defendants Enedina Martinez, Alfredo Guerrero, Laura Montemayor, and Webb County, Texas were defendants in the district court. Villarreal did not appeal the district court’s dismissal of her claims against those Defendants. The State of Texas was an intervening party in the Fifth Circuit.