The judges who ruled against La Gordiloca are criminalizing watchdog journalism

(A collaboration between the Texas Observer and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ palabra., which brings to light high quality stories for and about Latino and other communities.) In a blow to First Amendment advocates, a majority of the judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Tuesday not just to throw out a lawsuit by the Laredo citizen journalist and provocateur Priscilla Villarreal, who goes by the name La Gordiloca, but to endorse an expansive view of government power that permits police to arrest reporters for seeking basic information through backchannels. The majority opinion, authored by Judge Edith Jones, appointed by former President Ronald Regan, finds that local officials were reasonable when they used an obscure Texas law to arrest Gordiloca and thereby criminalize a wide range of what has been considered basic accountability journalism. The ruling applies in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

“Any law enforcement agency basically has a green light right now to go out and arrest and threaten or detain journalists who publish documents that are leaked from the government,” said attorney Daxton “Chip” Stewart, a media law professor at Texas Christian University, in an interview about the ruling. “And … if that journalist spends a night in jail, they don’t have a remedy and can’t sue for a civil rights violation.” The court sidestepped addressing the Texas law’s constitutionality, and Jones couched her findings on whether Laredo officials knowingly violated Villarreal’s civil rights when they arrested her in 2017. “Villarreal and others portray her as a martyr for the sake of journalism,” Jones wrote for the majority. “That is inappropriate. She could have followed Texas law, or challenged that law in court, before reporting nonpublic information from the backchannel source. By skirting Texas law, Villarreal revealed information that could have severely emotionally harmed the families of decedents and interfered with ongoing investigations.” Jones’ sweeping language indicates that the government can criminalize journalism like the leaked video and other records that exposed police failures during the May 24, 2022, shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Stewart said. In a dissent, Judge James Graves, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote that such logic means journalists “will only be able to report information the government chooses to share.” The sharply divided Fifth Circuit and impassioned dissenting opinions—three Trump appointees from Texas and one George W. Bush appointee broke with the conservative majority—increases the likelihood the U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up on appeal. On Wednesday, Villarreal said that was her next step.