Episode 4: Gonzalez v. Trevino

Sylvia Gonzalez v.Edward Trevino, II, et al., argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on March 20, 2024. From the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari: In Nieves v. Bartlett, this Court held that probable cause does not bar a retaliatory arrest claim against a “police officer” when a plaintiff shows “that he was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been.”***Here, a 72-year-old councilwoman organized a petition criticizing a city manager, and unwittingly placed it in her binder during a council meeting. Two months later, respondents—the city manager’s allies—engineered her arrest for tampering with a government record. That charge has no precedent involving similar conduct, was supported by an affidavit based on the councilwoman’s viewpoints, and skirted ordinary procedures to ensure her jailing. The councilwoman sued respondents but no arresting officer. Questions Presented: Whether the Nieves probable cause exception can be satisfied by objective evidence other than specific examples of arrests that never happened. Whether the Nieves probable cause rule is limited to individual claims against arresting officers for split-second arrests. Resources: Gonzalez v. Trevino docket Institute for Free Speech Gonzalez v. Trevino amicus brief Nieves v. Bartlett opinion (2019) Time Stamps: (00:00:06) Anya A. Bidwell, Institute for Justice, Counsel of Record for Sylvia Gonzalez (00:30:00) Nicole F. Reaves, Assistant to the Solicitor General (00:57:00) Lisa S. Blatt, Counsel of Record for Edward Trevino, et al. (01:07:40) Justice Gorsuch asks about viewpoint discrimination in enforcement of statutes and the First Amendment (01:15:45) Justice Kagan asks a hypothetical about objective evidence of officers retaliating over viewpoint (01:23:40) Rebuttal by Anya A. Bidwell The Institute for Free Speech promotes and defends the political speech rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government guaranteed by the First Amendment. Learn more on our website: www.ifs.org