I blogged Tuesday about Sgaggio v. De Young (D. Colo.), which wrongly concluded that various online criticisms of police (calling them "pig," "terrorist," "bitch," "punk ass," and "dirty ass") was legally "obscene" and thus unprotected by the First Amendment; for more details on the substance, see here.
But reader Michael Kaufmann adds a procedural detail: It turns out that the Magistrate Judge's First Amendment analysis was copied, entirely and nearly verbatim, from the defendants' motion for summary judgment and the city's reply to plaintiff's response. The motion had been pending for seven months, and the report and recommendation on the motion was released the day the Magistrate Judge retired.
To give just one example of the many similarities, here's a passage from the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendations:
