No. 24-59

Stephen Lynch Murray v. Phil Archer, et al.

Lower Court: Eleventh Circuit
Docketed: 2024-07-18
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Relisted (2)
Tags: civil-procedure civil-rights color-of-law confrontation due-process fourth-amendment free-speech political-speech speech-retaliation standing witness-confrontation
Key Terms:
DueProcess
Latest Conference: 2024-11-08 (distributed 2 times)
Question Presented (AI Summary)

When there is speech infringement with arrest, must there be a venue for confrontation and evidence the state did not provide as due, before a federal court can rule on fact?

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED When there is speech infringement with arrest, must there be a venue for confrontation and evidence the state did not provide as due, before a federal court can rule on fact? When there is any stated opportunity to file an amended complaint no matter how futile or misconceived, does this give a court of appeal discretion to not review the actual issues appealed, which are that the district dismissed all the plaintiff's claims with prejudice and intended to? Can a state penalize political speech based on an imagined crime witnessed by nobody, where a federal court accepts facts provided by nobody contrary to the sworn statements of the political speaker as firsthand witness? The Constitution did not seek to answer the question "What are our natural rights?", assuming the process to protect them is not a big problem. It sought to answer the question "What institutions and processes are necessary to impede violations of our rights by a king or the majority?" History can be examined to clarify what natural i rights are, why processes are needed, and what historical processes were used. But history cannot be used to abridge the process protections created by the Constitution and law, such as the right to confront witnesses and a jury trial, or to reduce process protections below those necessary to serve the generally applicable principles. Particularly in areas most vulnerable to corruption of the process, guns and political speech. The mayor can say whether you are guilty of a traffic ticket (even that is corrupted by money), but not whether you committed a murder or whether an arrest legalized broad violations of your speech rights. Stating what your rights are, or what the historical process protections were, is insufficient to fulfill the increased process protections in United States law. A diluted state process protection against false arrest is not the same as a state process protection against the state using color of valid arrests to attack political speech. The exact opposite is true. It is because state Fourth Amendment protections are weak compared to a jury trial, that states can exploit this weakness to attack speech. A state cannot convict you in front of a jury either that you did something you didn't do, or of what you actually did if that was speaking. But they can arrest you for it or just beat you in the street with a superficial appearance of legality. : Federal courts were given a mandate to supplement i state Fourth Amendment protections, not to rely on them or outsource to them. "Under color of statute" can be translated as "superficially legal if only subjected to a local judge scrutinizing a cop's lies and actions". 42 USC 1983 is not so you can tell a federal court "a cop said he is breaking the law to arrest me", or "the state violated my speech rights without even the superficial appearance of Fourth Amendment process". It is so you can tell a federal court "a cop ; colored an arrest as if he was following the law (which is enough to satisfy the state's Fourth Amendment process), which is why I need more protection for my speech than the local Fourth Amendment process, such as discovery and confronting witnesses and a jury to examine what actually happened". The Court's present doctrine for creating process to protect against state speech attacks, actually increases the state's power to use false arrests to attack political speech under color of statute. Because it allows the generous treatment by courts of subjective facts and lies at the moment of arrest, to also be used to excuse multiple events outside the moment of arrest, without discovery or confronting witnesses. The Court's doctrine says we can depend on the state's Fourth Amendment process not just to shield you from false arrest, but to shield you from broad attacks on political speech using only the remarkably uncritical treatment of a cop's justification for arresting you, and also to produce a record of enough informa

Docket Entries

2024-11-12
Rehearing DENIED.
2024-10-23
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/8/2024.
2024-10-11
Petition for Rehearing filed.
2024-10-07
Petition DENIED.
2024-09-04
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/30/2024.
2024-07-15
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 19, 2024)

Attorneys

Stephen L. Murray
Stephen Lynch Murray — Petitioner