WASHINGTON - On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case brought by Sylvia Gonzalez, a 76-year-old Texas grandmother who sued officials in Castle Hills after they allegedly arrested her for criticizing the city manager.
The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm specializing in defending constitutional rights, is representing Gonzalez and has posted about the case on its website.
According to IJ, the case asks the Supreme Court to reconsider how government officials are given immunity when they conspire to jail their critics, and is likely to have wide-ranging ramifications for how government officials can be held accountable in a court of law.
“We are thrilled that the Court agreed to hear Sylvia’s case,” said IJ attorney Anya Bidwell. “Criminal laws cannot be used to launder First Amendment violations and create backdoor censorship. But that’s exactly how Castle Hills officials used them against Sylvia.”
In its post, IJ states that Gonzalez became the first Hispanic councilwoman in Castle Hills history. She championed a petition calling for the removal of the city manager, which IJ contends was met with a coordinated campaign of retaliation by city officials.
“Two months after presenting the petition, city officials engineered Sylvia’s arrest for misplacing a document in her binder at a council meeting. The document also happened to be the same petition to remove the city manager that Sylvia had championed,” the post states. “City officials argued Sylvia had stolen her own petition from the mayor as she was gathering her papers at the end of a council meeting.
“After spending the day in an orange jail shirt, sitting on a cold metal bench, Sylvia was eventually released. That evening her mugshot was splashed across local media along with the baseless allegations. Sylvia was mortified.”
The city’s district attorney dropped the charges and Gonzalez decided to resign from the city council, according to the post.
“I didn’t think this could happen in America,” said Gonzalez. “No one should be arrested for standing up for what they believe in. I’m hopeful that the Supreme Court will hold the city accountable so that no one else will have to go through what I went through. ”
Gonzalez’s case is part of IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability, which seeks to remove court-created legal hurdles to constitutional accountability like qualified immunity.