Dijon Sharpe v. Winterville Police Department, et al.

This case presents a stark circuit conflict over a nationally important First Amendment question. By 2011, this Court had definitively held that generating and disseminating information is speech safeguarded by the First Amendment. Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U.S. 552, 570 (2011). The Court had also unequivocally recognized that “‘a major purpose of ’ the First Amendment ‘was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs.’” Ariz. Free Enter. Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721, 755 (2011) (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 14 (1976) (per curiam)). Applying these and other of the Court’s established precedents seven circuits—the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh—had expressly recognized by the time of the incident in this case that the act of filming police officers in public is undoubtedly First Amendment protected activity. Notwithstanding the Court’s precedents, and the consensus of authority from these other circuits, the Fourth Circuit below held that a reasonable police officer could have concluded at the time of the events in this case, October 2018, that filming police carrying out their duties in public is not First Amendment protected activity. The court thus granted qualified immunity to respondent police officer Myers Parker Helms IV for assaulting petitioner in retaliation for filming him during a routine traffic stop. The question presented is: Whether the Court should hold that it was clearly established by October 2018 that filming police officers in public is First Amendment protected activity, or at least clearly establish that it is First Amendment protected activity going forward. (i)