Citizen journalist arrested for publishing information before local police

Journalist Priscilla Villarreal’s lawsuit against Texas officials, stemming from a 2017 arrest over her reporting, was revived by the Supreme Court on Oct. 15, 2024, and sent back to the federal appeals court that had previously dismissed her claims.

Villarreal was charged in December 2017 with two felony counts of “misuse of official information” after she publicized details about the identities of a man who died by suicide and a car accident victim before police officially released them.

The charges against her were dismissed in March 2019. Villarreal then sued officials from the City of Laredo, Texas, and Webb County for violating her First and Fourth amendment rights.

Villarreal was arrested under a statute that had never been successfully prosecuted and which a judge ruled was unconstitutionally vague. She argued in her federal suit that the officials had selected a “facially unconstitutional” statute in order “to chill her First Amendment activity.”

A district court judge dismissed her claims and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal in January, ruling 9-7 that the city officials and police were entitled to qualified immunity. Villarreal appealed to the Supreme Court in April.

In the Supreme Court’s ruling, it said that in light of a separate decision earlier this year that also involved an apparently retaliatory arrest, the appeals court should reconsider its initial finding.

Villarreal celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision with posts on her Facebook page. “It has been a challenging seven years since Laredo officials attempted to silence me,” she wrote, “and this marks a significant step toward rectifying the wrongs I have faced.”

A federal appeals court on Jan. 23, 2024, upheld the dismissal of citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal’s lawsuit against officials from the City of Laredo, Texas, and Webb County stemming from her arrest in December 2017.

Villarreal was charged with two felony counts of “misuse of official information” after she publicized information about the identities of a man who died by suicide and a car accident victim before police released them through official channels.

The charges were dismissed in March 2019 when a judge ruled that the statute — which had never been successfully prosecuted — was unconstitutionally vague. In April 2019, Villarreal filed her lawsuit against 10 officials from the city and county alleging violations of her First and Fourth Amendment rights.

After a district court judge dismissed her claims, a panel of three judges with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals initially ruled in her favor in November 2021. The court later vacated that ruling in favor of a full, en banc, panel hearing.

In the 5th Circuit’s subsequent decision, it ruled 9-7 that the city officials and police were entitled to qualified immunity, dismissing Villarreal’s allegations of retaliation.

“Villarreal and others portray her as a martyr for the sake of journalism. That is inappropriate,” Judge Edith H. Jones wrote for the majority. “She could have followed Texas law, or challenged that law in court, before reporting nonpublic information from the backchannel source.”

In four lengthy dissents, circuit judges objected to the majority’s characterization of Villarreal and her work as a citizen journalist and expressed concerns over the impact the decision may have for freedom of the press.

“There is simply no way such freedom can meaningfully exist unless journalists are allowed to seek non-public information from the government,” Judge James Graves Jr. wrote in his dissent. “Today’s majority opinion overlooks that protection all too cavalierly.”

Neither Villarreal nor her attorney responded to requests for comment. In a post on Facebook, Villarreal wrote that she wasn’t surprised by the majority opinion and that she plans to appeal her case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“[T]hey violated constitutional rights and someone needed to set these people straight,” Villarreal wrote. “I want to be the one that makes that change for the next person.”

On Nov. 1, 2021, a federal court of appeals reversed a Texas district court’s ruling that dismissed citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal’s lawsuit against officials from the City of Laredo and Webb County stemming from her December 2017 arrest.

Villarreal had filed a civil lawsuit in April 2019 and the defendants filed a motion to dismiss on June 14 on the grounds of qualified immunity and failure to state a claim. In May 2020, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Kazen granted the motion and dismissed all claims correspondingly, according to filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Villarreal appealed the dismissal of her claims on May 21. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the dismissal of her First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims and her civil conspiracy claims on Nov. 1, 2021, but not her municipal liability claims against the City of Laredo.

In the Court of Appeals’ opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho wrote that the lower court had “erred” in dismissing Villarreal’s claims on the grounds of qualified immunity.

“If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question,” Ho wrote.

“It is not a crime to be a journalist. As the Institute for Justice rightly observes, the position urged by the City of Laredo in this case is ‘dangerous to a free society,’ for ‘[it] assumes that the government can choose proper and improper channels for newsgathering—indeed, that the government can decide what is and is not newsworthy.’”

Ho remanded the case back to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas for further proceedings consistent with the Court of Appeals’ decision.

On April 8, 2019, Priscilla Villarreal filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Texas against 10 officials from the city of Laredo and Webb County, including city police officials, saying she was wrongfully arrested and that her First Amendment rights were violated. Her petition states that there was no probable cause, and the statute under which she was detained would not have been used by any “reasonable official.”

The Laredo Morning Times reported that the petition states Villarreal was surrounded by police officers and employees after her arrest who were “laughing at Villarreal, taking pictures of her in handcuffs with their cellphones, and otherwise showing their animus." Thus, Villarreal is seeking compensation for the physical, mental, emotional and financial hardship she says she suffered during the case. According to the Morning Times, “Villarreal is seeking an entry of judgment holding the defendants liable to their alleged unlawful conduct; actual, compensatory and punitive damages; injunctive relief; declaratory judgment; and attorney fees.”

In April, May and June, defendants filed separate motions for the dismissal of the case, but on Sept. 10, U.S. Federal Magistrate Judge John A. Kazen denied those motions. The case is ongoing and Villarreal claims that not only was she arrested under a “vague” law, it was also “selectively enforced” and has not been used in the past.

A Texas state district judge dismissed the charges against Villarreal, the San Antonio Express-News reports. Judge Monica Notzon ruled that the statute under which she was charged — which criminalizes the "misuse of official information" — was unconstitutionally vague.

Isido Alaniz, the district attorney who signed off on Villarreal's arrest, said that he does not plan to appeal the judge's ruling.