Federal court tosses judge's suit against sheriff who investigated her for releasing courtroom video
A federal judge in Michigan has dismissed a retaliation lawsuit filed by a state court judge against the sheriff who sought to charge her for releasing a courtroom video showing a defendant’s attempted shank attack on a prosecutor.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids dismissed the lawsuit by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina of Ingham County in a Jan. 4. decision, report MLive.com and the Lansing State Journal.
Aquilina had sued after then-Sheriff Gene Wrigglesworth investigated her for releasing the video, recorded in another courtroom, to a reporter from the Lansing State Journal. A prosecutor declined to charge Aquilina. The judge’s suit alleged First Amendment retaliation because the inmate’s ability to bring a shank into the courtroom was a matter of public concern.
The defendant had pulled the shank from his sleeve and charged at the prosecutor. Officers subdued the man, and no one was injured in the August 2016 incident. Aquilina allowed the reporter to view and record the video.
Jonker said protections for First Amendment retaliation are more limited when the speaker is a public employee and the subject matter is part of the employee’s official duties.
Release of the video “is not the kind of speech that supports a First Amendment retaliation claim, any more than it would if the speaker had been an entry level courthouse employee, and the alleged retaliator had been the clerk of court who fired the employee for the leak,” Jonker wrote.
Jonker added that, in his view, it is important that speech by one public official doesn’t become the basis of a retaliation complaint by a second public official. “Clashes between elected officials should normally be resolved by the ballot box, not in a courtroom,” he said.
