Posted on 03/19/2024 7:14:48 AM PDT by V_TWIN
A small-town political feud that wound up with a Texas city council member behind bars is headed to the Supreme Court this week, where justices will consider whether the councilwoman can sue city leaders for politically motivated retaliation. "I would never believe that I would be going to the Supreme Court," Sylvia Gonzalez told Fox News. "I would never believe that I was in jail either."
"In America, we don't arrest our critics," IJ attorney Anya Bidwell said.
Gonzalez's story began in 2019 when the then-72-year-old retiree won a seat on the Castle Hills City Council. She said constituents had complained extensively that the city manager, Ryan Rapelye, was unresponsive, particularly to their concerns over the condition of their streets.
As soon as she was elected, Gonzalez championed a nonbinding petition calling for the city manager to be replaced with a previous manager who residents felt had done a better job. Another resident introduced the petition at Gonzalez's first city council meeting. Discussion of the manager's job performance "grew contentious," according to court records, and the meeting was extended through the following day.
At the end of the meeting, Gonzalez said she straightened up the papers strewn across her dais and put them in her binder before going to talk to a constituent.
Gonzalez went back to the dais and Trevino asked where the petition was. Gonzalez said she didn't know. Trevino allegedly asked her to look in her binder, saying he could see a clip inside.
Trevino and Police Chief John Siemens used the briefly displaced petition to launch a criminal investigation into Gonzalez, her lawsuit alleges.
The special detective produced an arrest affidavit alleging that Gonzalez had "been openly antagonistic" toward the city manager from her first meeting, "wanting desperately to get him fired."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I expected something like jail time for criticism of the government to occur in China 🇨🇳 or Iran 🇮🇷 but never on American 🇺🇸 soil.
[[where justices will consider whether the councilwoman can sue city leaders for politically motivated retaliation. ]]
Trump deserves the same right to sue for political harassment and persecution based on vendetta agaisnt him by the left
“In America, we don’t arrest our critics,”
That changed in 2021.
It’s not longer “American soil”.
Those days are long gone....without ever firing a shot.
It’s become the septic tank for the world’s criminals.
Better known as: “Bidenland”.
Bidenland is ruled by King pedoPig, The First.
Steve Baker would have a case.
Yep- the left in this country try, who hate this nation, have tu4ned one of the greatest nations on earth into the world’s personal crapper
This is why Trump will not win.
A national political feud that wound up with a former president behind bars is headed to the Supreme Court this week, where justices will consider whether the accused can sue Democrat leaders for politically motivated retaliation. "I would never believe that I would be going to the Supreme Court," President Trump told Fox News. "I would never believe that I was in jail either."
"In America, we don't arrest our critics, unless they are a conservative" IJ attorney said.
The police are often part of the problem. They should simply decline to arrest anyone if no law has been broken. But instead they just mindlessly obey.
Well, kadeesah jackson brown needs to recuse “themself” since they aren’t big on the first amendment.
This is the “big fish in a little pond” syndrome, of local leaders behaving badly because they demand that everyone else show deference to them and their ideas.
In past it reached extremes like throwing their critics out of town for good, and forced commercial boycotts of their critics, aka “Your money isn’t good here, get out.” The fear of such punishment was redoubled with the SCOTUS ruling with the infamous Kelo decision:
“On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a 5-4 vote that the City of New London’s taking of private, non-blighted property for the purpose of economic development satisfied the constitutional “public use” requirement.”
This signaled open season for local big fish to use government to oppress those they hated, and those that they just wanted to steal their land.
So the struggle with local tyranny continues.
After hearing the Justices in oral argument yesterday, I bet they will be more concerned with the government’s “rights” to free speech than they will of the rights of this poor lady.
Themself might not even be correct. Itself might be the correct choice. Is there a linguistic biologist available?
Our country has become a police state like East Germany
The Harris/Biden regime has been doing it for three years.
😂😂😂👍
“In America, we don’t arrest our critics,”
The only thiung that should be arrested is critics if they re ones that break the law. All criminals are critics of the system. That’s why they break it.
But she was not arrested for being a critic. She was arrested for concealing a government record, a misdemeanor that would have resulted in her removal from office if she had been convicted.
The charge was based on what she describes as an honest mistake: After a city council meeting, she says, she accidentally picked up a bundle of petitions against City Manager Ryan Rapelye—petitions that she herself had organized—and placed it in her binder along with other papers.
The mayor asked her for the document and she said she had no idea where it was while it was in her possession. Accidental or not, it can violate title 8, chapter 38 of the Texas penal code.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.37.htm
She will win her case because they can’t prove it was intentional. And she’s pressing it due to her embarrassment of public disclosure, not the legalities of the arrest. So it’s up to the prosecution to prove an intentional act. That’s tough to do.
wy69
A substantial fraction of police think that the law is whatever they say it is, and that "contempt of cop" is the most heinous offense possible.
especially in freaking Texas
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