"Publicly expressing anger toward an elected official is not a basis for entry of an injunction. In public debate, elected officials must tolerate insulting remarks—even angry, outrageous speech—to provide breathing room for the First Amendment."
"Even if past [mentally distressing] speech that an offender made to a person ... could be considered ... integral to the criminal conduct of menacing by stalking [and thus unprotected], we do not believe that this principle may be applied categorically to future speech ... directed to others."
With a special cameo appearance by Eric Holder.
Fortunately, the Florida Court of Appeal reversed the order.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals just overturned the conviction, and struck down the underlying statute, which banned posting messages "whether truthful or untruthful" "for the purpose of causing injury to any person."
The California Court of Appeal reversed, in an interesting case about allegations of physical abuse—and claims that the allegations were themselves a form of "abuse."
"Touching someone's arm to get their attention, I would have thought was normal."
The Commission on Human Rights is likely running afoul of the First Amendment.
"Eugene Volokh told the police he refuses to leave me alone."
Fortunately, the Florida Court of Appeal has just reversed.
... vacated by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
The ban on online speech intended to and reasonably likely to (among other things) "annoy," the court says, is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
Such speech, whether about elected officials or others, is punishable, the court held, if it "[does] not express social or political beliefs or constitute legitimate conduct" and "could only serve to harass, annoy or alarm the complainant."
Sound words from a federal district court decision handed down last year.
That's the legal theory behind a case just filed by prosecutors in Ohio.
Yes, said an Ohio Court of Appeals majority opinion, reasoning that the speaker's past speech "was not engaged in for a legitimate reason, but instead for an illegitimate reason born out of a vendetta seeking to cause mental distress to his mother and sister and to exact personal revenge." No, argue the EFF, Prof. Aaron Caplan, and I in a brief we've just filed with the Ohio Supreme Court.
So a federal district court in Washington just concluded, about a Washington statute that criminalized "anonymous or repeated" speech intended "to harass, ... torment, or embarrass."
The order, entered under the Illinois Stalking No Contact Order Act, barred Chester Wilk from "communicating, publishing or communicating in any form any writing naming or regarding [Pastor Eric Flood], his family or any employee, staff or member of the congregation of South Park Church in Park Ridge."
"Twitter is responding to a targeted harassment campaign against specific individuals-a policy that's long been against the Twitter Rules."
Journalists who uncritically accepted Nathan Phillips' story got this completely wrong.
Author and sex worker Maggie McNeill was suspended from Twitter Tuesday for a hyperbolic comment about burning the White House down.
On Monday, a federal appeals court considered Grindr's guilt in a case involving app-based impersonators.
It's been dubbed "NYC's Anti-Airdrop Dick Pic Law," but the bill is much broader than that.
"We cannot adopt the trial court's preference to treat a [personal protection order], which in this case is a prior restraint on ... speech, as a means 'to help supplement the rules that we all live in society by.' The First Amendment ... demands that we not treat such speech-based injunctions so lightly."
An interesting dissent from denial of review by Texas's high court for criminal cases.
Tracy Zona was ordered to "remove forthwith, all references to petitioner the family and legal representatives and make no further posting in re of any kind"; she was then ordered to spend five days in jail unless she removed the posts (which she did).
Yet the order (narrowed on appeal to 50 feet, but still unconstitutional) seems to have been based on pretty normal -- if acrimonious -- local political debate. We're asking the Ohio Supreme Court to review the decision upholding it.
Accusations against author Junot Diaz are pouring in, but not all allegations are equal.
The N.Y. Senate just unanimously passed a bill that would do that.
That's what D.C. stalking law, as interpreted by D.C. courts, calls for.
The councilman was Trayon "Rothschilds Control the Weather" White (or, if you prefer, Trayon "Nazi Stormtrooper Protectors" White).
A First Amendment violation, I think, notwithstanding the court's concern about the anonymous Tweeter's privacy.
One activist is ordered "not [to] post photographs videos, or information about [the other] to any internet site."
Rep. Michelle DuBois wants to remove a statehouse sign that reads "General Hooker Entrance" because it is an affront to "women's dignity."
Forbid the eggplants, but leave the winking faces alone, please.
Therapies that slow and even reverse aging will be a tremendous boon for both women and men.
Because "there is a First Amendment right to videotape police officers while they are conducting their official duties in public," that right applies even over the objections of the people being arrested by the officers.
Richard Rynearson's online criticisms of Clarence Moriwaki, the court held, were protected by the First Amendment, and thus couldn't justify an antistalking order.
The government's theory would equally criminalize insulting posts on a NRA page, or on a pro-Trump organization's page, or on a Communist Party page.
The New Jersey Supreme Court narrowly construes a ban on annoying conduct to avoid First Amendment problems.
No, says the New Jersey Supreme Court in an opinion that sharply limits the state criminal harassment statute.
Former student alleges the school screwed up its investigation.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown argues in The New York Times that we can thank "feminism, but also free markets" for the ongoing purge of predatory men.
Documents from a $27,000 harassment settlement from Rep. John Conyers' office show how Congress keeps its tax-funded settlements secret.
