First Amendment

Plaintiff had posted a “joke” on Facebook claiming that deputies would shoot “the infected” with Covid on sight; was arrested for terrorism; language was protected by First Amendment, deputies not entitled to qualified immunity) (Note: this case was previously reported in the 11/21/23 Actionable Conduct report. The earlier decision was withdrawn and superseded by this opinion.

Where county jail employees opened and scanned legal mail into computer that contained memory chip, they could access mail outside of detainee’s presence in the future in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Plaintiff had posted a “joke” on Facebook claiming that deputies would shoot “the infected” with Covid on sight; was arrested for terrorism; language was protected by First Amendment, deputies not entitled to qualified immunity.

No clearly established First Amendment right to remain silent during police questioning, Wooley v. Maynards, 430 U.S. 705 (1977) recognition of “right to refrain from speaking at all” in connection with right not to display “Live Free or Die” on license plates is at too high a level of generality; no clearly established right to be free from investigation in retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights.

Officer’s telephone call
criticizing plaintiff for talking to reporter did not violate First Amendment where plaintiff
was merely “scared,” an insufficient injury.

Intermediate scrutiny for content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions of expression, rather than strict scrutiny for content-based restrictions of expression, was applicable to temporary nighttime curfew imposed by mayor to quell violence and destruction accompanying mass protests; curfew upheld.

Placing inmate in disciplinary/segregated confinement constitutes “adverse action” for First Amendment retaliation claim; if inmate is found guilty of disciplinary infraction after being afforded due process and there is evidence to support the disciplinary panel’s finding, he cannot assert a retaliation claim.

In outrageous qualified immunity decision, court denies absolute immunity but affords qualified immunity to prosecutor who redacted exculpatory information from exoneree’s file, thus interfering with his access to courts claim, because it was not clearly established that redacting exculpatory evidence in response to a public records request violated constitutional or statutory law.

Placing inmate in disciplinary/segregated confinement constitutes “adverse action” for First Amendment retaliation claim.