Petitions of the week
By Kalvis Golde
on October 28, 2022
at 6:47 p.m
The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of certifications some time ago in the Supreme Court. There is a list of all the petitions we are looking at here.
Last year, the Supreme Court threw out a case against former President Donald Trump that asked whether Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked people from his personal Twitter account while in office. This week, we highlight the substantive claims that require the court to consider, among other things, whether school board officials who block particularly vocal parents from their personal accounts violate the First Amendment.
Christopher and Kimberly Garnier are parents in the city of Poway, California — located a few miles north of San Diego — who have a history of tense disputes with the local school board. Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and TJ Zane are Poway school board members. For their school board campaigns, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane created personal Facebook and Twitter pages, which they updated with their official titles after they were elected and began using them to post about business and school district news.
Christopher, who is Black, and Kimberly felt that their concerns about race relations in the school district were going unheard, despite their regular attendance at school board meetings. Turning to social media, the Garniers posted hundreds of repeated comments on O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane’s Facebook and Twitter pages voicing their concerns. O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane eventually blocked the Garniers for spamming their accounts. The Garniers responded by suing O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane for violating their First Amendment rights.
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with the Garniers. Because O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane had updated their personal social media pages with their school titles and regularly used them to post information about the school district, the 9th Circuit reasoned that blocking the Garniers from pages constituted state action. The court held that the sites are a public forum in which the Garniers have a First Amendment right to participate.
IN O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, school board officers are asking judges to decide whether they were acting in their official capacity when they blocked the Garniers on their personal Facebook and Twitter pages. The school district did not create, fund or direct any of the content on their sites, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane point out. Posting announcements about the district and listing their official titles, they argue, does not transform personal social media pages into official ones.
A list of this week’s submitted petitions is below:
O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier
22-324
issue: If a public official engages in state action subject to the First Amendment by blocking an individual from the official’s personal social media account when the official uses the account to present his work and communicate about work matters with the public, but does not do so pursuant to any governmental authority or duty.
Pulsifer v. United States
22-340
issue: Whether a defendant meets the criteria in 18 USC § 3553(f)(1) as amended by the First Step Act of 2018 in order to qualify for the federal drug conviction “safety valve” provision for how long that he does not have (a) more than four criminal history counts, (b) a three-count felony, and (c) a two-count felony, or if the defendant meets the criteria as long as he does not have ( a), (b), or (c).
Anderson v. Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc.
22-346
issue: Whether a bankruptcy trustee seeking recovery on behalf of creditors under 11 USC § 544(a) is subject to debtor’s knowledge.
