Public Service, Public Corruption and the First Amendment

Abstract

The 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos imposed significant new restrictions on the First Amendment freedom of speech rights of public employees. Specifically, the Garcetti majority held that the First Amendment did not provide any protections for internal or external communications made in the course of performing their official duties. The 2014 case of Lane v. Franks provided the U.S. Supreme Court the opportunity to decide whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit properly denied First Amendment protection for testimony given by an employee of an Alabama community college who testified during a federal public corruption trial. The U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 9 to 0, held that Garcetti did not block the employee from proceeding with a claim that the community college retaliated against him for his trial testimony. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized a public corruption testimony exception to Garcetti.