Whether it obviously violates the First Amendment to arrest someone for asking government officials questions and publishing the information they volunteer

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 legiti mate purpose, but to silence a vocal critic. In a nine -to-seven en banc decision, the Fifth Circuit held the officials have qualified immunity, concluding 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. This Court granted certiorari, vacated, and remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino , 602 U.S. 653 (2024) (per curiam) . But on remand, a splintered Fifth Circuit again held the officials have qualified immunity and largely restored “our previous en banc majority.” In dissent, Judge Higginson remarked, “I do not think it is a proper answer to the High Court to reinstate what we mistakenly said before, just in different packaging.” 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 ii from the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits have held, or whether qualified immunity shields those officials, as the Fifth Circuit held below. iii PARTIES TO THE PROCEEEDING Petitioner Priscilla Villarreal was the plaintiff in the district court, the appellant in the Fifth Circuit, and petitioner on the previous petition for a writ of certiorari. Respondents Isidro R. Alaniz, Marisela Jacaman, Claudio Treviño Jr., Juan L. Ruiz, Deyanira Villarreal, and Does 1 –2 were individual defendants in the district court, appellees in the Fifth Circuit, and respondents to Villarreal’s previous petition for a w rit of certiorari. 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 d efendants. The State of Texas was an intervening party in the Fifth Circuit and filed a response to Villarreal’s previous petition for a writ of certiorari.