https://www.foxnews.com/politi...n-wins-supreme-court


Short story - at her first council meeting after being elected, Council member championed a petition from one of her constituents for recall of city manager. Petition is circulated at the meeting, meeting becomes contentious and is extended through the next day. After the meeting she collects papers (including the petition) and put them in her ”binder”.

While talking with people and before leaving, she is approached by a police officer who says the Mayor wants to speak to her. Mayor asks where petition is, she says she doesn’t know (apparently unaware it was mixed in with paperwork she collected)

Mayor asks to look in her binder, finds the petition and takes it from her. Two months later she learns there is a warrant for her arrest, turns herself in, gets booked, mugshot, etc.

Mayor and Police Chief launch criminal investigation, Chief assigns buddy as a “special detective” to run (railroad?) the investigation and she is charged with “stealing” her own petition under a Texas law that covers intentionally removing or destroying government records. Law has never been used in such a case, instead being used to go after fake SSNs, forged official checks, and bogus green cards. Case is eventually dropped.


She sues for retaliation as well as first amendment issues, but the 5th Circuit Court rules against her saying she didn’t provide sufficient proof of a similar case being handled differently.


This is the part that caught my eye…

”The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the Fifth Circuit's decision, finding that Gonzalez's research showing that the statute under which she had been charged had never been used in her county to prosecute someone for "trying to steal a nonbinding or expressive document" was sufficient to support her claim. The Fifth Circuit, in ruling against her, said she needed more.

"That court thought Gonzalez had to provide very specific comparator evidence – that is, examples of identifiable people who ‘mishandled a government petition’ in the same way Gonzalez did but were not arrested," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion, adding that "the demand for virtually identical and identifiable comparators goes too far."

(Bold emphasis added)


Interesting ”precedent” that has now been decided that seems tailor made to a couple of the issues and theories I remember hearing the legal talking heads blather about during President Trump’s NY trial and potentially could come in on the other pending cases.

I am surprised that the Mayor, etc., thought it would be a good idea to put a grandmother in jail. One would expect that eventually they would be caught. Hopefully the City pays heavily for this abuse of power.

Hope the Mayer and Chief personally pay heavily for this and not from city coffers. If not criminally, then at least civilly. This is all kinds of fucked up.

Well, before we get out over our skis on calling for the heads of the Mayor (et. al) everyone should read Justice Alito's concurrence in this case. The facts, as Spock says, are fascinating. It begins on page 6 of the opinion.

Gonzalez v. Trevino