Dear John,

For the first time in IJ’s history, we won two cases at the U.S. Supreme Court in the same term!

A few weeks ago, we got a unanimous Supreme Court win on behalf of our client Richie DeVillier, and today I write with even more good news from the nation's highest court.

This time, the Justices ruled in favor of IJ and Sylvia Gonzalez ([link removed] ) , a Texas grandmother who is fighting to hold accountable the officials who jailed her in retaliation for speaking out against the city government. Today’s decision confirms that the lower court applied an impossibly strict standard of evidence, which would’ve prevented anyone in a situation similar to Sylvia’s from getting justice.

In 2019, as a freshman member of the Castle Hills City Council, Sylvia spearheaded a petition that called for the removal of the city manager. Her vocal opposition didn’t sit well with the city manager’s allies, and two months after the petition was submitted, Sylvia was arrested and brought up on bogus charges. Humiliated, she resigned.

But the First Amendment protects you from retaliation when you exercise your free speech rights. So Sylvia teamed up with IJ to hold accountable the officials who manufactured her arrest. The 5th Circuit, however, dismissed the case, saying that Sylvia hadn’t established that her constitutional rights had been violated at all.

In order to prove that there had been a constitutional violation, the 5th Circuit said Sylvia would have had to point to a person who had done the exact same thing Sylvia was accused of (misplacing a government document for a few minutes), who was subsequently not brought up on the same phony charges. Without that impossible fact, no other evidence mattered.

So IJ convinced the Supreme Court to take up the case to decide whether courts can enforce the First Amendment’s protection against retaliation by looking at all the evidence. And today we got our victory.

The Court ruled that “The demand for virtually identical and identifiable comparators goes too far.” Rather, courts can indeed look at broader evidence when determining whether to grant qualified immunity to officials. Going forward, this will make it easier to bring First Amendment retaliation cases.

Now, Sylvia’s case heads back to the lower courts, where they will have an opportunity to examine new, broader evidence to determine whether or not the officials who harassed and jailed her are entitled to immunity.

From day one, Sylvia was fighting to protect other people from the injustice she experienced. That’s exactly what this ruling will do. And with five other First Amendment retaliation cases at different stages of litigation, we’re proud to continue fighting to protect free speech in Sylvia’s honor.

Thank you for standing with us as we fight to remedy injustice and uphold the Constitution.

Scott

Scott G. Bullock

President and Chief Counsel

Institute for Justice

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