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 January 1, 2016 in 

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In the last three years, I convinced Texas courts to hold five statutes unconstitutional under the First Amendment. ((Also one statute under Texas’s separation of powers clause.)) I filed briefs in the Georgia Supreme Court, will argue the unconstitutionality of a Georgia statute next month, ((February 22 in Atlanta. There will be steaks, wine, and hilarity. Mark your calendars.)) and will be assisting Jason Clark in the appeal of another George First Amendment challenge. ((Protip: the State can’t forbid people insulting bus drivers.)) This year, I’d like to hear from:

Here’s what those lawyers get for calling me: we’ll discuss the best attack on the law, both substantively and procedurally. I’ll share what I know about the substance, and I’ll get up to speed on their states’ procedure, so that together we can choose the best avenue of attack (in Texas, it’s a pretrial application for writ of habeas corpus; in Georgia, a demurrer). We’ll draw up the papers together. I’ll prep you to argue the case in the trial court. If there is an appeal from the trial court’s ruling, you’ll get me admitted pro hac vice, we will write the brief together, and I will argue the case in the appellate courts. This will cost you and your client nothing but travel expenses and pro hac vice admission fees. In other words, your client gets tens of thousands of dollars worth of First Amendment appellate expertise for free. I’m doing the thing for the sheer joy of the doing. ((Don’t tell my wife.))

Will we win? I’m betting on it. Many of the Texas cases to which I’ve added my name have been dismissed by the State—so many that it has become frustrating to me that the State can evade the First Amendment fight with a determined litigator and continue prosecuting those schmoes who have lawyers less resolute.

Passing those statutes, their proponents are going to find, was child’s play compared to defending them in court. All of those statutes are presumptively unconstitutional. ((Content-based restrictions on speech (which includes expressive conduct) are presumptively unconstitutional. If you wonder whether a statute is presumptively unconstitutional, ask yourself: do you have to look at the content of a communication to decide whether the law has been violated? If so, the statute is presumptively unconstitutional.)) The defender of one of these statutes will have the burden of showing a court either a) that all of the speech restricted by the statute falls into some category of unprotected speech; or b) that the protected speech restricted by the statute is not real and substantial, in relation to the statute’s legitimate reach.

Now that even law profs dare join actual lawyers in proclaiming that the emperor has no clothes, that these revenge-porn statutes are unconstitutional, it won’t be long before courts catch on and disassemble revenge-porn statutes. Even legislatures will figure out, eventually, that it makes no sense to pass a statute that the courts are going to kill a year or two later.

The era of the revenge-porn statute, in other words, is coming to a close, and with it the idea of constitution-be-damned “cyber civil rights.” Join me on the front lines of that fight.

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