The Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of a grandmother jailed in alleged retaliation, Fox News reported.
The Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision against Sylvia Gonzalez, a former councilwoman from Castle Hills, Texas, affirming her First Amendment rights. The case centered on allegations that local officials, including Castle Hills Mayor JR Trevino, orchestrated her arrest in retaliation for her critical comments about the city manager, thereby engaging in political retribution, according to Fox News.
Texas grandmother jailed in alleged political retaliation wins at Supreme Court https://t.co/8CGNWRW99g
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Gonzalez, who was 72 at the time of the incident, faced charges for allegedly attempting to remove a nonbinding petition from a city council meeting, a charge that was later dropped, the outlet reported. Her arrest followed her active involvement in advocating for the replacement of City Manager Ryan Rapelye. (RELATED: Supreme Court Sides With Starbucks In Labor Dispute)
The controversy began at Gonzalez’s first council meeting in 2019, where the debate over the city manager’s performance led to her inadvertently placing the petition in question into her binder. The situation escalated when Trevino and Police Chief John Siemens reportedly initiated a criminal investigation based on the misplaced petition, ultimately leading to Gonzalez’s arrest.
“I didn’t even know what I was accused of,” Gonzalez told Fox News. “I’d never been in jail … and it was very scary to an old lady like me.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: An exterior view of the Supreme Court on June 20, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is about to issue rulings on a variety of high profile cases dealing with abortion rights, gun rights, and former President Donald Trump’s immunity claim, putting the court at the center of many hot political topics during an election year. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The Supreme Court criticized the Fifth Circuit’s demand for Gonzalez to provide evidence of others in similar situations who were not arrested.
“That court thought Gonzalez had to provide very specific comparator evidence — that is, examples of identifiable people who ‘mishandled a government petition’ in the same way Gonzalez did but were not arrested,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion, Fox News reported. “The demand for virtually identical and identifiable comparators goes too far.”
