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Defendant's Attorney: Lesli Gattis Ginn, Christopher D. Hilton, Cynthia Ann Morales, Elizabeth Joan Brown Fore

Description: Laredo, Texas civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendants claiming that they violated her First Amendment Rights.

If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen
journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being
imprisoned. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was
put in jail for asking a police officer a question.

If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to
imagine what would be. And as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held,
public officials are not entitled to qualified immunity for obvious violations
of the Constitution.

The district court accordingly erred in dismissing Villarreal’s First
and Fourth Amendment claims on qualified immunity grounds. The district
court also erred in dismissing her Fourteenth Amendment claim for failure
to state a claim

* *

Priscilla Villarreal is a journalist in Laredo, Texas. She regularly
reports on local crime, missing persons, community events, traffic, and local
government. But Villarreal is not a traditional journalist. Instead of
publishing her stories in the newspaper, she posts them on her Facebook
page. Instead of using a tape recorder to conduct interviews, she uses her cell
phone to live-stream video footage of crime scenes and traffic accidents. Her
reporting frequently includes colorful—and often unfiltered—commentary.
Perhaps because of this, she is one of Laredo’s most popular news sources,
with more than 120,000 Facebook followers. See, e.g., Simon Romero, La
Gordiloca: The Swearing Muckraker Upending Border Journalism, N.Y.
Times (Mar. 10, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/us
/gordiloca-laredo-priscilla-villarreal.html (“[Villarreal] is arguably the most
influential journalist in Laredo, a border city of 260,000.”).
Villarreal is not shy about criticizing law enforcement. For example,
in 2015, law enforcement uncovered evidence of animal abuse on the
property of a relative of Marisela Jacaman, Webb County’s Chief Assistant
District Attorney. Villarreal vocally denounced the district attorney’s
decision to recall the arrest warrant for Jacaman’s relative on animal cruelty
charges and instead pursue a civil settlement. On another occasion, Villarreal
live-streamed Laredo Police Department (LPD) officers choking an arrestee
during a traffic stop.

Not surprisingly, local law enforcement officials were less than
enthused with Villarreal’s reporting. During a meeting with Villarreal, Webb
County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz told her that he did not appreciate her
criticism of the decision to withdraw the arrest warrant for Chief Assistant
District Attorney Jacaman’s relative. On another occasion, an officer
threatened to take Villarreal’s cell phone when she was recording a crime
scene from behind a barricade—while saying nothing to the other members
of the media standing next to her.

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-40359-CV1.pdf

Outcome: We reverse in part and affirm in part and remand for further
proceedings.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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