Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Though I have been counsel on SCOTUS cert petitions and responses and the occasional amicus brief over the years, I never had the opportunity to argue before the High Court. I realized I needed to make my own arrangements to watch our Supremes in action.
The argument I observed involved a lawsuit out of Texas and the Fifth Circuit challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism. The nine justices were active in asking questions of counsel.
Last Friday, police in Marion, Kansas, seized the computers, file servers and personal cellphones of journalists at the local newspaper, the Marion County Record. According to a search warrant, officers believed there was probable cause that newspaper personnel had used equipment seized by officers to commit identity theft. Journalism is not a crime. Reporters and editors are not criminals. The First Amendment guarantees it. This common view of freedom of the press in America appears to have escaped the attention lately of at least one police department in Kansas. And one in Texas, too.
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