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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Attorney courage and state interference

More on the controversy over the Florida Department of Health efforts to stop tv stations from airing ads supporting an reproductive-freedom constitutional amendment: John Wilson--the attorney who drafted letters threatening tv stations with civil and criminal nuisance actions, was named as defendant in the EpY action, and loudly quit his job--filed an affidavit with the district court (presumably in support of a motion to dismiss) saying: 1) people in Governor DeSantis' office drafted the letters and ordered Wilson to send them under his name and department; 2) people in DeSantis' office ordered Wilson to enter contracts with outside counsel; and 3) Wilson resigned a week later rather than send a second round of letters.

As to ## 1 and 2: It is not surprising that DeSantis is behind these efforts or that he tried to launder those efforts behind Public Health. Nor do I imagine there is more fallout, other than perhaps to get DeSantis and his aides added to the suit.

As to # 3: There is a nice PR question as to how much to praise Wilson. Usually the "I'm drawing a line" involves someone willing to do X but not Y--"I'll decline to report this wrongdoing, but I won't forge documents to hide it." Here, Wilson's "line" was I will do X once but not twice. What changed--why did his conscience not stop him from attaching his name and sending letters on October 3 but stopped him from doing the identical thing with identical letters on October 10? In what way could the wrongfulness of those letters become apparent in those seven days?

Posted by Howard Wasserman on October 22, 2024 at 10:36 AM in Civil Procedure, Constitutional thoughts, First Amendment, Howard Wasserman, Judicial Process | Permalink

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