Last October, the Supreme Court revived a federal civil rights lawsuit by Laredo, Texas, news vlogger Priscilla Villarreal, who was literally arrested for asking questions—a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. The justices remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which yesterday killed the lawsuit again.
Judge Edith Jones, who wrote the 2024 decision that rejected Villarreal's lawsuit the last time around, is also the author of Tuesday's ruling in Villarreal v. Laredo, which begins with a telling mischaracterization. According to Jones, Villarreal claims she suffered "unconstitutional retaliation based on her 'speech' obtained from backchannel police sources in order to benefit herself in violation of Tex. Admin. Code Section 39.06(c)"—a little-known, rarely invoked law aimed at "misuse of official information." That gloss, like Jones' 2024 opinion, obscures the reality that Villarreal was "jailed for basic journalism," as Reason's Billy Binion put it in 2023—a point he elucidated in a compelling 2024 video about her case.
