Police officers who abuse citizens usually escape punishment because of an array of legal doctrines that stack the law in an officer’s favor. That was true before the murder of George Floyd and killing of Breonna Taylor and it’s true after the uprising that those events caused. The guilty verdict and stiff sentence for Derek…
The ways people communicate change over time. And our laws, including the First Amendment, adapt to those changes. But it isn’t clear that recent changes and trends are adapting to our needs for truthful and reliable information, and for outlets of dissent, reform, and renewal, within today’s electronic communications environment. When the Bill of Rights…
Perhaps you’ve seen the sticker on a gas pump. Or maybe you saw a photograph on social media. The sticker is a cartoon of President Joe Biden with the words “I did that!” It is positioned so he is pointing at the gas price. Biden is not responsible for rising consumer gas prices, but the…
In the backyard of the Hazelwood Supreme Court decision, I am organizing efforts for year seven of trying to get New Voices legislation passed in Missouri. The only thing that has passed in the last seven years are the states passing Missouri in adding this law that basically overrides Hazelwood and grants First Amendment rights…
Ask any 10 journalists to name the most important First Amendment decision ever handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and at least nine of them will say New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan. If your media law class was long enough ago that you no longer remember the details, the case involved a local…