No. 21-1071

Stephen Lynch Murray v. Janelle Irwin Taylor, et al.

Lower Court: Florida
Docketed: 2022-02-02
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Tags: civil-rights cyberstalking-statute defamation due-process first-amendment free-speech government-retaliation judicial-discretion political-speech standing
Latest Conference: 2022-04-14
Question Presented (from Petition)

1. Can the government deputize private actors to
attack political speech and thereby abridge political
speech using law and case law in civil court?

2. Can a state civil court classify political speech as a
crime without witness or discovery and relying on
undisputed perjury, and dismiss a defamation
lawsuit, whether compelled to do so by law and code
of the state or with discretion, with the effect of
protecting and participating as instrument in a
government attack on political speech, by stripping a
private citizen of traditional protections against
defamation, in a special circumstance contrived by
government in its own interest, to selectively
deputize and bolster and reward a non-government
actor, toward the purpose of using false and
malicious defamation to penalize the private citizen
in retaliation for speech petitioning that same
government with grievances?

3. Are all the individual elements and the sum of
these same general processes constitutional when
used by the government to attack and retaliate for
political speech directed toward that same
government? Can a judge dismiss a civil case where
the sum pares or ignores the right to petition the
government with grievances?

4. Florida has a new "Cyberstalk" statute which is
sufficiently vague that it can be used to arrest
someone for snarky private emails to a jerk elected
official about unrelated political topics and figures,
and driving over a bridge to post political fliers
outside a law school, particularly when bolstered a)
with a standard policy of rewarding and not
punishing police who lie in arrest affidavits with the
consent of the majority faction, b) with political
influence, and c) with the general bias of police and
courts against speakers from opposing factions, in a
time when national polarization infects all public
interactions. Can a private citizen whose political
speech is so attacked, be selectively deprived by state
courts, law, and case law, of a remedy necessary to
ex post facto protect his right to petition his
government with grievances?

5. If the "Cyberstalk" statute is so vague that it is
likely to result in the events in this case, then
whether it is enforceable might turn on whether the
state can insulate errors from judicial review and
appeal, whether errors can be cured immediately
after the fact, or whether they are insulated from
any adequate remedy ever by judicial rules, laws and
case law, or as a practical matter by time and costs of
appeal and political resistance. Is the entirety of the
design not just a freak event or error, but a designed
means through the "Cyberstalk" statute (in concert
with other means like overlooked perjury), to
criminalize political speech, which design
incorporates and necessarily relies on the discretion
and present ruling of the Florida circuit court? And
is the circuit court, as the final arm of government
necessary for this attack on political speech, bound to
refrain from dismissing complaints against the end
result of this process, and turn it over for review by a
jury of private citizens, in the special asserted case of
political speech?

6. If, with public support, false and malicious
defamation becomes gentrified as a designed part of
the criminal justice process, which can be deleg

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Can the government deputize private actors to attack political speech and thereby abridge political speech?

Docket Entries

2022-04-18
Petition DENIED.
2022-03-23
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/14/2022.
2022-01-27
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 4, 2022)

Attorneys

Stephen L. Murray
Stephen Lynch Murray — Petitioner