Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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On Thursday, a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved a pair of lower court orders that barred producers of Utah’s Comic Con events from commenting on – or even posting public documents from – their infringement litigation with a San Diego group that claims ownership of the Comic-Con trademark. The appeals court held the orders to be an unjustified, unconstitutional prior restraint on the Utah group’s free speech rights.
That was the only sensible outcome. The trial judge in the Comic Con case, U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia of San Diego, issued the orders because he was convinced the Utah group’s website, Facebook and Twitter posts - which included commentary as well as links to articles about the case and documents from the litigation – would irretrievably taint the jury pool in San Diego. The 9th Circuit said Judge Battaglia’s reasoning simply didn’t hold up given the size of the jury pool and the availability of common procedures like voir dire to weed out biased jurors.
Allowing the restraints to remain, the 9th Circuit said, would justify gag orders “in almost any situation where an article is written or a statement is made in a public forum.” In other words, if the 9th Circuit hadn’t struck down the Comic Con restraints, parties’ First Amendment rights would be vulnerable in every case of public interest in the circuit. Thanks to Judges Kim Wardlaw, Ronald Gould and Paul Watford, that dire prospect is foreclosed.
Common sense (and the Constitution!) win in Comic Con gag order appeal
Good.
That was the only sensible outcome. The trial judge in the Comic Con case, U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia of San Diego, issued the orders because he was convinced the Utah group’s website, Facebook and Twitter posts - which included commentary as well as links to articles about the case and documents from the litigation – would irretrievably taint the jury pool in San Diego. The 9th Circuit said Judge Battaglia’s reasoning simply didn’t hold up given the size of the jury pool and the availability of common procedures like voir dire to weed out biased jurors.
Allowing the restraints to remain, the 9th Circuit said, would justify gag orders “in almost any situation where an article is written or a statement is made in a public forum.” In other words, if the 9th Circuit hadn’t struck down the Comic Con restraints, parties’ First Amendment rights would be vulnerable in every case of public interest in the circuit. Thanks to Judges Kim Wardlaw, Ronald Gould and Paul Watford, that dire prospect is foreclosed.
Common sense (and the Constitution!) win in Comic Con gag order appeal
Good.
