The ideal of a government of laws is just an illusion. We are a government of men and women who pull whatever crap they can get away with.
This case was so badly botched even before one gets to free speech questions that one wonders why, at some point, the state didn't just admit error and agree to have the case dismissed. This reads like "let's see. There are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. How many of them can we mess with? Now obviously we can't violate the 3rd, 9th, or 10th amendments here but maybe we can mess with the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eigth..."
One wonders why they stopped at the Bill of Rights. Maybe they could get the city to pass a Bill of Attainder while they are at it. Maybe they could have gone for broke and asked the state to station national guardsmen in his bedroom on release?
This case was so badly botched even before one gets to free speech questions that one wonders why, at some point, the state didn't just admit error and agree to have the case dismissed. This reads like "let's see. There are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. How many of them can we mess with? Now obviously we can't violate the 3rd, 9th, or 10th amendments here but maybe we can mess with the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eigth..."
One wonders why they stopped at the Bill of Rights. Maybe they could get the city to pass a Bill of Attainder while they are at it. Maybe they could have gone for broke and asked the state to station national guardsmen in his bedroom on release?