A media company appealed from a trial court’s denial of its request for the names of jurors after they deadlocked and a mistrial was granted, but before the retrial. The Superior Court acknowledged that the 1st Amendment was implicated, but since the trial judge simply said he would not divulge the names until after the … Read more
In a wild mashup between George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words and the cult classic Bring it On, the Third Circuit had to play referee. In doing so, the Court held that a disenchanted cheerleader’s weekend, off-campus Snap of “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything” was protected 1st Amendment speech. In so ruling the … Read more
Appellant entered guilty pleas to certain charges in the Allegheny County Sex Offender Court and received a probation tail to his sentence. One condition of his probation is that he was not permitted to possess a device that was capable of accessing the internet. He was caught with cell phones with internet connections repeatedly, and … Read more
A civil servant who worked for PennDOT posted to her Facebook account a rant about the poor performance of school bus drivers and her seemingly cavalier attitude toward running over small children. As a result, she was fired. She sued to get her job back. The Supreme Court noted that the government has a heightened … Read more
#CSL #SocialMedia # 1stAmendment #MegansLaw #StrictScrutiny #Overbroad In what surely is a preview of a New Jersey (maybe even SCOTUS) case, the Appellate Division determined that a provision prohibiting a parolee from accessing social media online as part of a parole provision under Community Supervision for Life violates the 1st Amendment, as it is overbroad … Read more