WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court docket has turned down an appeal, backed by the satirical The Onion, from a man who was arrested and prosecuted for generating exciting of law enforcement on social media.
The justices on Tuesday still left in put a decrease courtroom ruling from Anthony Novak, who was arrested following he spoofed the Parma, Ohio, law enforcement power in Facebook posts.
Immediately after his acquittal on felony fees, Novak sued the police for violating his constitutional rights. But a federal appeals court dominated the officers have “qualified immunity” and threw out the lawsuit.
The Onion submitted its temporary in protection of parody. Its attorneys wrote that the Initial Amendment safeguards people today from prosecution when they make entertaining of other people.
“The Onion’s writers also have a self-serving curiosity in stopping political authorities from imprisoning humorists,” the site’s lawyers wrote in a transient submitted in Oct. “This quick is submitted in the fascination of at the very least mitigating their long term punishment.”