The Supreme Court on Oct. 15 revived a citizen journalist’s lawsuit against Laredo, Texas, in which she claims that officials arrested her for pursuing information from a police source.
Major news organizations and journalism nonprofits had spoken out in favor of the journalist, Priscilla Villarreal, known online as “Lagordiloca,” who provides livestream reports focusing on crime and corruption in the border town of Laredo.
Villarreal argues that seeking information from government officials is central to journalism.
“Those officials plotted the local journalist’s arrest not for any legitimate purpose, but to silence a vocal critic,” the petition states.
Instead of scheduling oral arguments in the case, the nation’s highest court summarily overturned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s January ruling against Villarreal and returned the case to the circuit court “for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino.”
The ruling allowed former Castle Hills, Texas, council member Sylvia Gonzalez to revive her lawsuit against Castle Hills.
Gonzalez was charged under a rarely invoked Texas law that forbids destroying or tampering with government documents.
The case deals with qualified immunity, a rule created by the courts that shields government officials from individual liability unless the wrongdoer violated an established right.
Civil libertarians have become increasingly critical of the qualified immunity legal doctrine in recent years, which they say allows government officials to get away with sometimes egregious wrongdoing.
Villarreal was arrested after she issued a report about a U.S. Border Patrol agent who committed suicide and another report regarding a fatal vehicle crash.
For both stories published on her Facebook page in 2017, she confirmed facts with a Laredo police officer.
Later, she was arrested on charges of violating a Texas law that makes it a felony-level offense to seek or accept information from a government official that has not been released to the public if there is an intention to obtain a benefit.
Her attorneys said that before her case, the 23-year-old law had never been enforced.
A local judge dismissed the charges for being unconstitutionally vague, and in 2019, Villarreal sued Laredo, claiming that officials deprived her of her rights under the First, Fourth, and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
She also sought punitive damages in the legal action filed in 2019 in federal district court in Texas.
A federal district judge then ruled in 2020 that qualified immunity shielded Laredo officials for their actions, but a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed the decision in 2022.
“If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned,” Circuit Judge James Ho wrote for the panel.
“Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question. If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what would be.”
However, the full Fifth Circuit reversed the panel’s decision in January 2024, finding qualified immunity protected the Laredo officials.
Ho filed a dissenting opinion, saying the ruling was “a recipe for public officials to combine forces with state or local legislators to do—whatever they want to do.”
“It’s a level of blind deference and trust in government power our Founders would not recognize,” Ho said.
FIRE attorney J.T. Morris told The Epoch Times: “We’re thrilled over today’s decision, and look forward to helping Priscilla continue her fight.
“This case is vital for free speech, a free press, and ensuring officials are accountable when they trample the First Amendment.”
Attorneys for the Laredo officials didn’t respond by publication time to a request for comment.
