A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to revive the lawsuit of a Texas-based online citizen journalist who said she was wrongfully arrested for seeking and obtaining nonpublic information from police in a case involving the attracted attention from national media organizations and freedom of expression advocates.
A state judge has dismissed the criminal case against Priscilla Villarreal – known online as La Gordiloca – saying the law used to arrest her in 2017 was unconstitutional. But Villarreal still wanted to sue officials for damages. She lost Tuesday in a 9-7 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which drew strong dissents from a group of ideologically diverse judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents.
The majority held that the police officers and other officials Villarreal sued in Laredo and Webb County were entitled to legal immunity.
“Villarreal and others portray her as a martyr for the sake of journalism. That is inappropriate,” Justice Edith Jones wrote for the majority. “She could have followed Texas law, or challenged that law in court, before reporting non-public information from the backchannel source.”
The ruling included lengthy opinions of more than 50 pages from three of the seven dissenting judges.
According to court documents, the law defined the criminal “misuse of official information” as the use of information that “has not been made public… with the intent to obtain an advantage or with the intent to harm or defraud another.” Authorities had argued that Villarreal could profit from using the information — the identity of a person who committed suicide and a family involved in a car accident — to gain fame on her Facebook page, Lagordiloca News LaredoTx .
“If the First Amendment means anything, it certainly means that citizens have the right to question or criticize government officials without fear of imprisonment,” Judge James Ho, nominated to the court by former President Donald Trump, said in a dissent. Other dissenters included three nominees from Republican presidents, and three nominated by Democrats.
Villarreal and an attorney representing her said in an email that they would take the case to the Supreme Court.
“I am disappointed,” Villarreal said, “but I will continue to fight for my rights and those of all Americans.”