Editor’s note: This story first appeared on palabra, the digital news site by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
A majority of judges in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals have shot down a lawsuit by south Texas citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal who alleged officials violated her rights by arresting her for publishing basic police news. But the ruling has touched off a larger debate over the government’s power to limit reporters — even arrest them — when they pursue information via backchannels.
Implications of the ruling are significant, say advocates of First Amendment rights who fear the court is opening the door to criminal sanctions for journalism that, for example, pursued and published leaked video and records that exposed police failures during the May 24, 2022, shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
In a dissent, Appeals Court Judge James Graves, an Obama appointee, wrote that the majority opinion means journalists “will only be able to report information the government chooses to share.”
In a profile, palabra and The Texas Observer detailed the exploits of Villareal, a popular and provocative independent reporter who goes by the name La Gordiloca, and her high-stakes court battle.
The majority opinion, authored by Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, finds that local officials were reasonable when they used an obscure Texas law to arrest La Gordiloca and thereby criminalize a wide range of what has been considered basic accountability journalism. The ruling applies in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
“Any law enforcement agency basically has a green light right now to go out and arrest and threaten or detain journalists who publish documents that are leaked from the government,” said attorney Daxton “Chip” Stewart, a media law professor at Texas Christian University, in an interview about the ruling. “And … if that journalist spends a night in jail, they…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply