Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Slade Alan Moore v. Texas
Paid petition · Court of Appeals of Texas, Eighth District, No. 08-20-00064-CR · judgment February 4, 2022
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Questions presented
A Texas statute criminalizes sending repeated electronic communications with the intent and likely result of “harassing, annoying, alarming, abusing, tormenting, embarrassing or offending” another. Because the law would be violated by the repeated sending of communications that contain no expressive content, like a blank email, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that it “proscribes non-speech conduct” and does not implicate the First Amendment, even though the law would in most cases be violated by the repeated sending of expressive communications. The court thus rejected Petitioners’ facial overbreadth challenges to the criminal statute. The questions presented are:
-
Is a law that criminalizes expressive speech immunized from any First Amendment scrutiny if it also criminalizes non-expressive conduct?
-
Is a law that punishes the repeated sending of electronic communications with intent and likely result to “harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass, or offend” another unconstitutionally overbroad? (i)
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Lane Andrew Haygood
Bailey & Galyen
For respondent
Judd Edward Stone II
Texas Attorney General's Office
Proceedings
- Feb 21 2023Petition DENIED.
- Jan 25 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/17/2023.
- Jan 23 2023Reply of petitioner Slade Moore filed. (Distributed)
- Jan 09 2023Brief of respondent Texas in opposition filed.
- Nov 17 2022Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including January 9, 2023.
- Nov 16 2022Motion to extend the time to file a response from December 9, 2022 to January 9, 2023, submitted to The Clerk.
- Nov 07 2022Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 9, 2022)
- Oct 05 2022Application (22A219) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until November 7, 2022.
- Sep 26 2022Application (22A219) to extend further the time from October 6, 2022 to November 19, 2022, submitted to Justice Alito.
- Sep 13 2022Application (22A219) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until October 6, 2022.
- Sep 08 2022Application (22A219) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from September 20, 2022 to October 6, 2022, submitted to Justice Alito.