The Onion Files Hilarious Brief at SCOTUS in Defense of Parody

[DGUtley]

what was Parma thinking?


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The Onion, well-known as a satirical news source, has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Novak v. City of Parma, arguing that publishers of parody should not fear arrest because they do not post disclaimers.


The case concerns a satirical Facebook page created by a man named Anthony Novak to mock the police department in the City of Parma, Ohio. Police arrested Novak for interfering in police operations, and he was acquitted. He then sued the city for violating his rights. He lost his case in the lower courts, which found that police reasonably believed they were acting within the law when they arrested him. Novak appealed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to uphold the dismissal of his case.


In its brief — which is itself something of a parody of a Supreme Court brief — the Onion argues that parody should presumptively enjoy the protections of the First Amendment, especially when it is obviously fake and whether or not it is actually funny. It argues:

In addition to maintaining a towering standard of excellence to which the rest of the industry aspires, The Onion supports more than 350,000 full- and parttime journalism jobs in its numerous news bureaus and manual labor camps stationed around the world, and members of its editorial board have served with distinction in an advisory capacity for such nations as China, Syria, Somalia, and the former Soviet Union. On top of its journalistic pursuits, The Onion also owns and operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic
shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining, and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.

The brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...us%20Brief.pdf




https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/...nse-of-parody/



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[Standing Wolf]

From 2007.

Phoenix New Times Executives Arrested for Reporting About Sheriff Joe Arpaio


On the night of October 18, 2007, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, founders and owners of the Phoenix New Times, an independent weekly publication in Phoenix, Arizona, were arrested and charged with the misdemeanor offense of revealing grand jury information. The alleged crime occurred when the New Times published an article that same day which described a subpoena it had received demanding that the paper disclose details about its online readers, among other information.

The underlying reasons for the arrests go back much further, though, to a series of unflattering articles involving Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, published by the New Times in 2004 and 2005. Those articles – which are also available on PLN’s website – included one describing a defamation suit filed against Arpaio by a political rival, one about the history of antagonism between Arpaio and the New Times, and another alleging that Arpaio had abused a law enforcement privacy law to conceal his more than $690,000 in cash real estate purchases. The good sheriff earns around $78,000 a year plus a modest federal pension, which raises some interesting questions. [See: PLN, March 2007, p.14].

The New Times had published Arpaio’s home address in its article about the sheriff’s real estate holdings – arguably a violation of an obscure privacy law, even though his address was already publicly available through other sources. The privacy law, a low grade felony, prohibits publishing a law enforcement official’s home address online if it poses “an imminent and serious threat.”

The grand jury subpoena served on the New Times was a result of the alleged privacy law violation, though the law had never before been enforced. The subpoena sought information from the reporters who wrote the series of articles, as well as records related to online readers who had visited the New Times’ website since the beginning of 2004 – specifically their Internet IP addresses and a list of other websites they viewed before visiting the New Times site, plus aggregate website visitor data.

The subpoena was “grossly, shockingly, breathtakingly overbroad,” according to Arizona State University professor of constitutional law James Weinstein. “It is really overbroad,” agreed Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fields. “And it touches on privacy issues of a lot of people who cannot be the subject of a grand jury investigation. This is potentially thousands of people.”

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the subpoena both sophisticated and frightening. He questioned its underlying justification, since the New Times could argue that its online publication of Arpaio’s home address was not an “underlying criminal act” which could support the subpoena. No criminal charges had been filed concerning the New Times’ alleged violation of the law enforcement privacy statute.

The subpoena was the brainchild of attorney Dennis Wilenchik, a political bedfellow of Sheriff Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Wilenchik was hired by Thomas as a special prosecutor to investigate the New Times. Thomas had previously been employed as an associate at Wilenchik’s law practice; after being elected County Attorney, Thomas reportedly funneled more than $2,350,000 in county legal work to Wilenchik’s firm, including work performed for the Sheriff’s office. Wilenchik also served as personal counsel for Thomas and Sheriff Arpaio. Both Wilenchik and Thomas were the subjects of uncomplimentary articles in the New Times regarding their financial dealings and connections with Arpaio – yet apparently neither saw a conflict of interest in attempting to prosecute the paper that published those articles, or in acting as Arpaio’s personal prosecution “hit” team.

Wilenchik used questionable tactics during his investigation of the New Times in addition to the subpoena. For example, on Oct. 10, 2007 he tried to arrange a private meeting with Judge Anna Baca, the presiding Superior Court judge overseeing the grand jury, using a politically-connected intermediary, Carol Turoff. Turoff was on the state’s Commission on Appellate Court Appointments; her husband is a member of the County Attorney’s senior management staff. As soon as the intent of the meeting became apparent, Judge Baca terminated her conversation with Turoff and called lawyers on both sides of the case into court. She said the attempted ex parte communication was “entirely inappropriate.”

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2008/aug/15/phoenix-new-times-executives-arrested-for-reporting-about-sheriff-joe-arpaio/

Later...

Joe Arpaio Loses: New Times Co-Founders Win $3.75 Million Settlement for 2007 False Arrests

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news...rrests-6651491

[DGUtley]

What the hell was Parma thinking? What was the sixth circuit thinking?


I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in some Municipal Court where the judge and the prosecutor are beating on me and my client to accept a dismissal of a ticket or what have you in exchange for an agreement not to sue the city and the prosecutors office. Back in the day, the landlords used to have the local prosecutors office arrest deadbeat renters. For failure to pay rent. Massively massively massively illegal. Talk about a conflict of interest.