Priscilla Villarreal v. The City of Laredo, Texas, et al.

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

We reverse in part and affirm in part and remand for further

proceedings.