On Protesting a Court's Final Opinion or Judgment

With the black-robed justices of the Supreme Court sitting not far away, President Obama took aim at a recent court decision which said that corporations could spend as much as they wanted to sway voters in federal elections.

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign companies -- to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said in his State of the Union Address in January 2010. “Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

The court’s ruling overturned a century-old restriction. In a 5-4 decision led by the court’s conservative bloc, the justices said that corporations had the same right to free speech as individuals, and for that reason the government could not stop corporations from spending to help their favored candidates. Many analysts predict the ruling will benefit Republicans in next fall’s midterm elections.

On January 15, 2010 the U.S. Department of Justice sent two officers to my residence to interview me about a law enforcement matter. Of particular interest and concern to the officers was my many-years preoccupation--most recently expressed in my protest blog, My Daily Struggles--with the action of the District of Columbia courts in affirming a prior determination by a District agency that decided not to reinstate my job at my former place of employment, the D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. The officer asked: "When did the Superior Court issue its decision?" I said: "June 11, 1996." "And then what happened?" "Then I filed an appeal with the D.C. Court of Appeals, which issued an opinion against me on September 1, 1998."

One of the officers asked me what my motive was in writing a blog (about my employment-related problems).  He said that he had been reading my blog since November 2009, apparently every day.

Implicit in the officers' questions was the Justice Department's viewpoint that my legal dispute with my former employer was a fully-adjudicated matter: my protest blog My Daily Struggles was, apparently in the view of Justice, a futile attempt to perpetuate a private legal dispute on which the courts have rendered a final decision.

My position is that my legal dispute with my former employer is not a private dispute; rather it is a dispute that raises issues of public policy.

-- Should an employer, any employer, be permitted to determine that an employee is mentally ill and potentially violent on the basis of a psychiatric opinion offered by a psychiatrist who did not evaluate the employee in person?

-- Should an employer, any employer, be permitted to fail to disclose to an employee that the employer has determined, in consultation with a practicing psychiatrist, that an employee is mentally ill and potentially violent?

-- Should an employer, any employer, be permitted to fire an employee with an exemplary employment record, because the employee is mentally ill and potentially violent, in a situation in which the employee is a beneficiary of the employer's Long-Term Disability Income Plan?

These issues are matters of public importance that rise above the status of a private dispute between a specific employer and employee. The questions raised by my job termination involve issues of public concern: issues of interest to any person who has a job or any individual or company that employs workers.

If President Obama may question a final ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States on a matter of public concern, surely a private citizen may question, on policy grounds, a final ruling by a state supreme court.

Actions of the U.S. Department of Justice, by its law enforcement arms, that have the necessary effect of intimidating a person in his free expression, in a reasonable and businesslike manner, of issues of public interest -- on the internet or by letters -- raise substantial First Amendment concerns.