Supreme Court Declines To Review Press Freedom Case

[reACTIONary]

5. This appears to be a bit of a muddle....

.... according to Sotomayor's dessert, the actual law was ruled unconditional...

This rule creates a perverse scheme in which officials can arrest someone for protected activity, decline to appeal a trial court's decision declaring the statute unconstitutional (as the county did here), and use qualified immunity to avoid liability by citing back to that statute."

What was dismissed was a lawsuits against those who used the law to arrest her, based on "qualified immunity." In other words, the officials should not be sued for enforcing a unconstitutional law that had not yet been declared unconstitutional.

Now, maybe they should have known the law would be or should be declared unconstitutional, and maybe they did. But I'm not sure they should be sued because they didn't behave as if it was.

In any case it appears as if the law itself is now null and void.