Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New cert petition! Mason Murphy was arrested for walking on the wrong side of a rural road in central Missouri. OR WAS HE? He would like to argue that in fact he was arrested as punishment for his protected speech, and that there's pretty darn strong evidence of the officer's true motive. For one thing, no one is ever arrested for walking there. For another, the officer's bodycam caught him calling others to ask, "What can I get him on?" But the lower courts are deeply split on what evidence people can use to prove up retaliatory arrest, and SCOTUS should surely take a look.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: We grab some bricks and consider if the Anti-Riot Act might be overbroad. And then: an "amazing" qualified immunity case about a Good Samaritan's arrest.
