Rebekah Massie of Surprise, Arizona was arrested during a late-August city council meeting.
Video from the meeting showed that Massie noted a local newspaper article that identified City Attorney Robert Wingo as the second-highest-paid city employee, AFN reported.
Massie said the article listed Wingo’s salary -- before the council increase his pay -- at $266,000 annually and compared that to the city attorney in Scottsdale, an Arizona city which exceeds the population of Sunrise by 100,000. Wingo, before the increase, made only $10,000 less, Massie said.
Massie accused Wingo of violations of Arizona statutes, professional conduct relating to the state bar and the U.S. Bill of Rights. All of this related to Wingo’s handling of allegations against the city clerk’s performance in recent elections.
Heavy-handed mayor
Mayor Skip Hall ordered that Massie be arrested and removed from the meeting room.
Last week, a judge looked at the facts, watched the video and dismissed the criminal charge against her with prejudice, saying that the city's conduct was objectively outrageous, and that no citizen should leave in handcuffs for their political speech.
"The Defendant should not have faced criminal prosecution once for expressing her political views," wrote North Valley Justice of the Peace Gerald A. Williams, according to The Phoenix New Times. "The Court agrees that she should never face criminal prosecution, for expressing her political views on that date at that time, again."
"This is the second good step in this case," says attorney Adam Steinbaugh of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the law firm representing Massie. "The first one was that the city has now repealed this rule, and now she's free of the criminal charges."
Massie celebrates her good news now, but Hall’s decision created a tumultuous time in her life.
“For more than two months I’ve been living with the threat of punishment and jail time — being taken away from my kids, even — for doing nothing more than criticizing the government,” she said in a news release. “Free speech still matters in America, and I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have people on my side standing up for our rights with me.”
Massie in the clear, city is not
FIRE still has a federal lawsuit against the city for damages and to make sure that officials do not try this again.
"The First Amendment is the law of the land, and that is why the court dismissed this charge with prejudice and why the court was so outraged by the city's conduct," says Steinbaugh. "I would hope that another city anywhere else in the country that tried this trick would wind up in the same position."
