Councilwoman’s Retaliatory Arrest Fight Gets Supreme Court Look

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a former Texas city councilwoman’s bid to sue the mayor, police chief, and a special investigator for allegedly violating her right to petition and criticize the government.

Sylvia Gonzalez of Castle Hills was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for intentionally destroying, concealing or removing a government record when a petition she spearheaded to oust the city manager ended up in her binder after a city council meeting.

Gonzalez argued she had picked up the petition by mistake and was really being retaliated against by allies of the city manager for trying to have him removed. The district attorney dropped the charges, but Gonzalez gave up her council seat.

The district court rejected the city officials’ motion to dismiss the case, but the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit disagreed. The appeals court said the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Nieves v. Bartlett barred Gonzalez’s retaliation claim.

In Nieves, the Supreme Court said probable cause of a crime bars claims of retaliatory arrest for conduct that’s protected by the First Amendment. But there’s an exception if a plaintiff can show objective evidence that people aren’t normally arrested for the conduct they were arrested for. The appeals court said Gonzalez hadn’t done that.

The justices are now being asked if objective evidence other than arrests is enough to qualify for the exception carved out in Nieves, and if the exception is limited to claims against police officers for split-second arrests.

The case is Gonzalez v. Trevino, U.S., No. 22-1025.