Joshua J. Friedman: NEW: A Louisiana federal judge has found that civil-rights activist DeRay Mckesson is not legally responsible for injuries inflicted by someone else at a protest he was alleged to have organized OPINION: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... CASE FILE: clearinghouse.net/case/45222/

NEW: A Louisiana federal judge has found that civil-rights activist DeRay Mckesson is not legally responsible for injuries inflicted by someone else at a protest he was alleged to have organized OPINION: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... CASE FILE: clearinghouse.net/case/45222/

The fact this went so far is absurd but this is good

Hang on. That makes sense or am I missing something?

The judge is an Obama appointee and graduate of Georgetown who got his undergrad at the only Catholic HBCU. Not surprising he is making good sense.

Ah, just not used to seeing court decisions that make sense. So they'll bring this to SCOTUS and they'll come back with Calvin Ball nonsense?

We won't need to wait that long for the batshit ruling, it's going to the 5th circuit.

5th won't take this one. That factual record is devastating to its previous ruling.

I agree, I was mostly being sarcastic, this was an insane prosecution and it's going to stand. I hope there will be some consequences for the people who brought it.

It already was denied cert from SCOTUS, they told the district court to apply a prior standard that led to this ruling www.aclu.org/press-releas...

In a Major Win for our Right to Protest, Federal Court Rules in Favor of Prominent Civil Rights Activist | American Civil Liberties Unionwww.aclu.org

Didn't SCOTUS this year write an opinion that actually organizers are responsible? Which then this judge is wholly rejecting that shit which is great.

Not a lawyer, but reading the opinion it seems like "organizers are responsible" is side-stepped entirely, because the guy being sued didn't organize the protest, and the Plaintiff's *best* evidence that they guy organized it was a single re-tweet of the time and location.

Oh thank god. This has been a long time coming, with some bad rulings along the way.

1. Does Louisiana have an anti-SLAPP law? 2. How soon until the appeal to the 5th Circuit? 😏

Jfc finally

I think this is an exceptionally well written opinion. The language is clear, direct, and forceful. It is not burdened with flowery turns of phrase, but rather follows a structural logic dictated by caselaw. It's devastating to the plaintiff.

Page 10 is like watching Mike Tyson work.

So if McKesson *had* organized the protest ... ?

Then the cops would still be idiots who got this wrong in the first place

Wait, but what if he did organize the protest?

Others know this case better than me, but I believe this summary judgment relied on the fact that he did *not* organize the protest. If the facts were different and he had organized the protest, he might have been held liable—though a trial hadn't yet happened

Josh, do you think is it a poor comparison to say that if an event organizer can be sued/charged for any activity at said event, an entire police department can be sued/charged for improper actions of individual police officers at events?

I think a closer analogy to your police example would be suing an *organization* that sponsored an event for the actions of an individual participant

That makes sense.

Well, issues of immunity aside, are not entire police department already held liable for the actions of individual police? That's the status quo

No, I don't think they are, precisely due to immunity. The individual officers rarely face charges, and the department as a whole, never.

You're right about it being very difficult to get charges against an individual police officer to stick, because of the doctrine of qualified immunity, but it's common for police departments (or the cities or counties that operate and fund them) to be sued. There are sometimes large settlements.

N.Y.P.D. Misconduct Settlements Cost $500 Million Over 6 Yearswww.nytimes.com A Legal Aid Society analysis found that New York City paid nearly $115 million in settlements last year alone.

The decision is based on two independent grounds: 1. no evidence of any leadership role, or sufficient connection to the harm, and 2. negligent First Amendment activity is insufficient for liability. The precise contour of liability was not laid out because the court didn't see it as a close call.

This is literally against what SCOTUS recently ruled this year, which is hilarious.

Absurd that it went this far, but the judge got it right.

Is this an appeal? I thought I read about the opposite finding some time ago.

Yes, it's been going back and forth. See the "case file" link above.

Is it news that X is not responsible for injuries to Y caused by Z, because X did not organise the protest? Or is it news that the police wanted to sue him, despite it?

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