Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New SCOTUS victory! Friends, it is very bad and wrong for gov't officials to arrest people in retaliation for their speech, and yesterday the Supreme Court issued a deeply important ruling on what kinds of evidence can be used to prove up a retaliatory arrest claim. The Fifth Circuit had held it wasn't enough that our client, Sylvia Gonzalez, was jailed for a "crime" that never results in arrest via irregular and inappropriate procedures after she championed a petition to oust Castle Hills, Tex.'s city manager. In vacating that ruling, SCOTUS ensured that people slimed, falsely accused, and jailed in retaliation for speaking out against the authorities can have their day in court. Click here to learn more.
New on the Bound By Oath podcast: In Kelo v. New London (2005), the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. On this episode, we ask: what, if anything, is left of the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on using eminent domain to take property from Person A merely to give it to Person B?
