By Connie Reguli

Many times, families are silenced by the Courts to prevent them from publishing their frustrations about Court proceedings. This type of restraint should not be allowed nor tolerated in our country. There are many cases prohibiting “prior restraint” when it come to our First Amendment freedoms.

In Federal Court, the implement “rules” against public dissemination of information about the case, presumably because it could affect the right of both parties to a fair and impartial jury. However, does social media really have such a broad reach to audiences that it would have a detrimental effect on a jury. And really, could this not be resolved in voir dire.

Recently, I was threatened on this very issue. I participate in social media platforms that are critical of the government and sometimes, challenge the operation of the Courts. In a pending Federal lawsuit, I made a disclosure about defendants regarding the corruption uncovered in this rural Tennessee county.

Within days, I received threatening letters claiming that Local Rule 83.04 prohibited such comments in social media.

So I found the reference below. In Ohio, the Federal Court has found this restriction to be unconstitutional………..Nice to Know.

Trial judges, the government, the lawyers and the public must tolerate robust and at times acrimonious or even silly public debate about litigation. The courts are public institutions funded with public revenues for the purpose of resolving public disputes, and the right of publicity concerning their operations goes to the heart of their function under our system of civil liberty. The courts have available other less restrictive approaches for insuring a fair trial. They may, for example, consider a change of venue or the sequestration of the jury or a searching voir dire examination of the jury.

The Court hereby finds that DR 7-107(G) is facially unconstitutional because it violates the over breadth doctrine as DR 7-107(G) is capable of being applied to punish attorneys for constitutionally protected speech or conduct and therefore, in the Court’s view, “reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct.” Leonardson, 896 F.2d at 195. DR 7-107(G) has a chilling effect in that it prohibits attorney speech in civil litigation that is otherwise protected by the First Amendment. Accordingly, the Court finds that DR 7-107(G) is over broad because it does not aim specifically at certain evils, but it sweeps within its reach other speech that is constitutionally protected. See Thornhill, 310 U.S. at 97.

The Court also finds that DR 7-107(G) is facially unconstitutional pursuant to the vagueness doctrine. DR 7-107(G) is void for vagueness since its provisions do not provide adequate warnings to all regarding what is permitted and what is proscribed by law. See Richardson v. City of South Euclid, 904 F.2d 1050, 1056 (6th Cir. 1990) (Merritt, C.J., dissenting); Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108. Thus, like Rule 177 as construed in Gentile, DR 7-107(G) with its somewhat ambiguous categories “creates a trap for the wary as well as the unwary.” Gentile, 111 S. Ct. at 1132. Moreover, DR 7-107(G) gives the disciplinary board considerable discretion in determining who will be disciplined and who will not be disciplined. Accordingly, DR 7-107(G) is void pursuant to the vagueness doctrine.

Wachsman v. Disciplinary Counsel Supreme Court

United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division

September 30, 1991, Filed Case C-2-90-335

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that a civil litigant’s First Amendment rights were violated when a U.S. district court judge ordered him to stop writing letters to shareholders of a bank that had sued him. Sept 2019. Bank of Hope v. Chon.