Thread by @jlbuch

The latest on La Gordiloca, Laredo citizen journalist-provocateur who was arrested for misuse of official information, as we await another decision by the Fifth Circuit. The appellate court's two conservative factions have taken very different positions. texasobserver.org/priscilla-vill…

Trump appointees to the Fifth Circuit are at odds with its traditional conservatives over qualified immunity, particularly when it intersects with the First Amendment. That was apparent during oral arguments over Villarreal's lawsuit alleging Laredo police violated her rights.

Judge James Ho was exasperated when attorneys for Laredo, Webb County and Texas argued that not only were government officials entitled to qualified immunity, but that their actions may have been perfectly lawful: “She went through the wrong channels? Wrong procedure. So, jail.”

Judge Edith Jones, known as one of the country's most far right jurists, took the position that governmental bodies have met their obligations under the First Amendment by letting reporters ask questions of public information officers and file records requests.

“She could have waited, waited like the rest of the press in Laredo, and obtained it from [the public information officer] a couple hours after the families had been notified,” Jones said to Priscilla Villarreal's attorneys during the arguments last year. texasobserver.org/priscilla-vill…

That argument "is the kind of thing you could have safely said 10 years ago would have been laughed out of any court in this country,” said TCU media law prof Chip Stewart. “All of a sudden, it’s an open question that has First Amendment advocates like me nervous.”