In an election cycle that featured approximately ten thousand moments that kind of just made you have to shake your head, one of the more awe-inspiring instances was when Sarah Palin accused the press of threatening her First Amendment rights. People all across the ideological spectrum were quick to jump on Governor Palin. Because, for one thing, the Bill of Rights protects us from government action. Not from each other.
This, tangentially, is what the First Circuit dealt with today in Broadley v. Hardman, No. 08-1342. Not Sarah Palin. No. They dealt with the question of when a private person becomes a government actor. And they held that a lawyer who issues a subpoena in a civil case is not a state actor.
Both parties to the appeal represented themselves, by the way, which must have been great fun for the judges on the panel and their clerks.
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