Thread by @ASFleischman

Watching these Sidney Powell press conferences, I'm reminded of a Supreme Court of Georgia case that almost certainly went the wrong way, in which the Court held it was constitutional to punish someone for pretending to be a serial killer on YouTube. /1

He was posting these bizarre videos with his face and voice distorted, and promising to confess to a variety of murders under the name "catchmekiller". And since, of course, he hadn't killed anyone, he was charged with GA's false statement law. /2

He argued that a conviction under this statute violated his First Amendment rights, and the Court agreed that if all you had to do was make a false statement and have it be in a court's jurisdiction, it would be unconstitutional. But they read it a bit more narrowly. /3

The Court said that this law was constitutional because it only punished conduct that was KNOWINGLY within the jurisdiction of a law enforcement agency.

Which...doesn't actually help much at all because I know pretty much anything I say might come to government attention. /4

I mean, even if I misdescribed the case right now, I'd expect a judge could read it on twitter and perhaps be influenced. My tweets could be a crime! /5

Anyway, can't think of a better test case than a lawyer falsely claiming at press conferences that she has a bunch of secret evidence of wife ranging election fraud. So if any enterprising GA prosecutors wanna give it a shot, seems like a win win.

I'd love to see this law struck down, and it might be nice to see the right wing of the country briefly united against government censorship.

Here's the case, if you're curious. And hey, Georgia lawyers, if you happen to pick one of these up, hit me up. This is a bad law that needs fixing.

cite.case.law/ga/289/515/

And here is the story of the "catchmekiller"

abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/catchme…

@SherryBostonDA You know just spitballing.