Tag Archive for: first amendment

We’re Laughing AT You, Not WITH You

From KSTP.com (really!) an incident that’s practically guaranteed to end up at juvie court:

City Not Laughing at Virginia (Minnesota)
Water Tower Prank

What was likely intended as a prank, is not amusing officials on the Iron Range. Police in Virginia say someone climbed up on the city water tower and changed the ‘n’ on ‘Queen City’ to an ‘r.’

The vandalism was discovered Monday morning. City officials say the vandalism took some effort, as the entire area is surrounded by barbed wired. The incident is being treating as a criminal investigation, and the water tower was re-painted a few hours after the discovery.

Was a Texas inmate’s vulgar note written on a piece of toilet paper and sent to a prosecutor constitutionally protected free speech? In a decisive landmark ruling, a federal appeals court ruled it is not. From cbs11tv.com,

Vulgar Note On Toilet Paper Not Protected Speech

In 2005, reacting to a motion from the state lawyer who urged an appeal in his case be dismissed, George Morgan (a convicted drug dealer) mailed her a note on toilet paper that basically instructed her to use the paper it for its intended purpose along with his opinion on her motion to dismiss. Then he signed it.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding a lower court, said Texas prison administrators were within their authority when they docked George Morgan 15 days of good time credits for sending the note.

Morgan had appealed the docked credits within the prison system and lost, then took his arguments to the federal courts, insisting the First Amendment “protects his vulgar pen from penalty and that the Fourteenth Amendment protects his good time credits from loss,” according to the 5th Circuit’s description of the case.

Morgan first became eligible for parole in 2007. He remains at the Stevenson Unit outside Cuero in South Texas.