Read Justice Sotomayor's dissent in Villareal v. Alaniz (March 23, 2026)

Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

1

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

PRISCILLA VILLARREAL v. ISIDRO R. ALANIZ, ET AL.

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 25–29. Decided March 23, 2026

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, dissenting from the denial of certi-

orari.

Petitioner Priscilla Villarreal is a reporter who was ar-

rested for doing something journalists do every day: posing

questions to a public official. Specifically, Villarreal twice

texted with a police officer to corroborate information Vil-

larreal already knew about events that had occurred within

her community. That officer voluntarily provided the infor-

mation Villarreal sought, and Villarreal published those

facts, consistent with her role as a journalist. Six months

later, Villarreal was arrested for asking those questions.

Making matters worse, Villarreal alleges that the arrest fol-

lowed a months-long effort by a police department and dis-

trict attorney’s office to retaliate against her because they

disliked much of her reporting on their activities. Of course,

that reporting was often critical of them.

It should be obvious that this arrest violated the First

Amendment. Yet the Fifth Circuit held that the officials

were entitled to qualified immunity, and now Villarreal is

left without a remedy. The Court today makes a grave error

by declining to hear this case.

I

Because this case comes to the Court on a motion to dis-

miss, the facts as stated in Villarreal’s complaint, recounted

here, and relied on in the analysis below, are assumed to be

true. Hui v. Castaneda, 559 U. S. 799, 802, n. 1 (2010). Doc-

uments incorporated by reference in the complaint also2 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

inform the sufficiency of Villarreal’s claims. Tellabs, Inc. v.

Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U. S. 308, 322–323 (2007).

Villarreal is a citizen journalist. (She reports under the

name “Lagordiloca.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 224a (App.))

Well over a 100,000 people follow her Facebook page, where

she covers newsworthy events in her community. Her reg-

ular subjects include the Laredo Police Department and lo-

cal government officials in Webb County. At times she

praises the conduct of those officials. Other times she is

critical of them, or posts content that she says is “unfavor-

able” to them. Id., at 229a.

Villarreal often live streams interactions between officers

and community members. On one occasion, she recorded

officers choking an individual during a traffic stop. On an-

other occasion, she reported on a homeowner who was ac-

cused of animal cruelty after many severely malnourished

animals were found on the person’s property. Villarreal

criticized the district attorney for declining to prosecute and

instead pursuing a civil settlement with the homeowner,

who was also the assistant district attorney’s close relative.

The district attorney later held a closed-door meeting with

Villarreal where she says he told her that he “did not ap-

preciate her criticizing his office.” Id., at 231a.

As this interaction reveals, local officials are aware of Vil-

larreal’s reporting. Villarreal contends that they do not like

it and that they have made their displeasure known. For

example, Villarreal recounts how one officer attempted to

discredit her in front of other officers by declaring, falsely,

that Villarreal is a five-time convicted felon. Villarreal says

that another attempted to obstruct her reporting at a crime

scene by threatening to take her phone, which she uses to

live stream to her followers, claiming that the phone was

“‘evidence.’” Id., at 230a. Eventually, officials began “plot-

ting [her] takedown.” Villarreal v. Laredo, 94 F. 4th 374,

407 (CA5 2024) (Willett, J., dissenting).Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

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SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

That brings us to the dispute underlying this action. On

two occasions in the spring of 2017, Villarreal texted a

source within the police department, with whom she had

communicated many times before, for details about events

that had occurred in her community. The first request in-

cluded the name and identification of a border agent who

died by suicide. The second included the name and condi-

tion of a person involved in a fatal traffic accident. Villar-

real had already learned these facts from private sources,

and the officer she texted willingly gave her the information

she requested. With that corroboration in hand, Villarreal

then published those details on her Facebook page.

Six months later, police officers secured two warrants for

Villarreal’s arrest, one for each incident. As Villarreal de-

scribes it, the warrants were the result of a months-long in-

vestigation in which police officers worked closely with the

local district attorneys’ office to come up with charges

against her. Those officials eventually accused Villarreal of

violating Texas Penal Code Ann. §39.06(c) (West Cum.

Supp. 2025), which states that “[a] person commits an of-

fense if, with intent to obtain a benefit . . . , he solicits or

receives from a public servant information that: (1) the pub-

lic servant has access to by means of his office or employ-

ment; and (2) has not been made public.”1 In the 23 years

since the statute was enacted, there is no documented ar-

rest in Webb County, let alone conviction, for violating

§39.06(c). 94 F. 4th, at 404–406 (Higginson, J., dissenting).

Villarreal says that she was the first.

In affidavits submitted with the warrant application to

the Magistrate Judge, an officer attested that Villarreal

——————

1 “Benefit” is defined as “anything reasonably regarded as economic

gain or advantage.” Tex. Penal Code Ann. §1.07(a)(7) (West Cum. Supp.

2025). “[I]nformation that has not been made public” is defined as “any

information to which the public does not generally have access, and that

is prohibited from disclosure under [the Texas Public Information Act].”

§39.06(d).4 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

sought to “benefit” from the information she received from

the officer by using it to increase her popularity on Face-

book. App. 241a–242a. The affidavits did not address how

the information Villarreal asked for, received, and later re-

ported about these two incidents fell within the definition

of nonpublic information under Texas law. Villarreal,

moreover, has alleged that the officer deliberately misled

the Magistrate Judge because he knew that Villarreal

“sought no benefit from her sourcing, and that she had ob-

tained no non-public information.” 94 F. 4th, at 402 (Hig-

ginson, J. dissenting).

After learning of the arrest warrants, Villarreal turned

herself in. At the station, Villarreal alleges that police of-

ficers “surrounded her, laughed at her, took pictures with

their cell phones, and ‘otherwise show[ed] their animus to-

ward Villarreal with an intent to humiliate and embarrass

her.’” Id., at 384 (majority opinion). Villarreal was de-

tained at the local jail before she was released on bond. She

later filed a writ of habeas corpus, which a Texas state-

court judge granted in an oral ruling from the bench after

declaring the statute unconstitutionally vague. The county

did not appeal.

Villarreal sought redress. She filed this action under 42

U. S. C. §1983 in Federal District Court against the officials

involved in her arrest. She alleged that they had violated

her First Amendment rights (among others) both (1) di-

rectly by arresting her for asking questions of a public offi-

cial and (2) in retaliation for her earlier reporting. The Dis-

trict Court dismissed the lawsuit in its entirety, concluding

that, even accepting the truth of Villarreal’s allegations, the

officials were entitled to qualified immunity. The Fifth Cir-

cuit initially reversed, holding that Villarreal’s “arrest was

‘obviously’ unconstitutional,” 94 F. 4th, at 384, but the full

en banc court, by a deeply divided vote, vacated the panel

decision and affirmed the District Court.Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

5

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Villarreal then filed a petition for certiorari to this Court.

The Court granted the petition, vacated the Fifth Circuit’s

en banc decision, and ordered further consideration in light

of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. 653 (2024) (per curiam),

which clarified the evidentiary burden for proving a retali-

atory arrest under the First Amendment. Villarreal v. La-

redo, 604 U. S. 973 (2024). On remand, a divided Fifth Cir-

cuit, still sitting en banc, construed this Court’s order to

mean that the “sole claim” it “ought to reconsider” was Vil-

larreal’s First Amendment retaliation claim, and that its

“previous en banc majority opinion [wa]s superseded only

to [that] extent.” Villarreal v. Laredo, 134 F. 4th 273, 275,

276 (2025). It then summarily concluded that the officials

were entitled to qualified immunity. This petition followed.

II

To defeat a claim of qualified immunity, an individual

must show that an official violated her constitutional

rights, and that the official had “fair warning that their con-

duct violated the Constitution.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U. S.

730, 741 (2002). Although “there does not have to be ‘a case

directly on point’” for this fair-notice requirement to be sat-

isfied, “existing precedent must place the lawfulness of the

particular [conduct] ‘beyond debate.’” District of Columbia

v. Wesby, 583 U. S. 48, 64 (2018).

Importantly, “‘general statements of the law are not in-

herently incapable of giving fair and clear warning.’” Hope,

536 U. S., at 741. This means that “officials can still be on

notice that their conduct violates established law even in

novel factual circumstances” when “‘a general constitu-

tional rule already identified in the decisional law [applies]

with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question.’”

Ibid.; see also Taylor v. Riojas, 592 U. S. 7, 8–9 (2020) (per

curiam). In other words, there can be an “‘obvious case,’

where the unlawfulness of the officer’s conduct is6 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

sufficiently clear even though existing precedent does not

address similar circumstances.” Wesby, 583 U. S., at 64.

III

The adverse action taken against Villarreal is an example

of an “‘obvious case.’” Ibid. Even absent a factually similar

precedent, the contours of Villarreal’s First Amendment

rights were sufficiently clear to place the unlawfulness of

the officials’ alleged conduct “‘beyond debate.’” Ibid.

A

The First Amendment protects the “right of citizens to in-

quire, to hear, to speak, and to use information.” Citizens

United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 339

(2010). It also protects a free press, “bar[ring] [the] govern-

ment from interfering in any way with” its function. Pell v.

Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 834 (1974). This encompasses

safeguarding “routine newspaper reporting techniques.”

Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U. S. 97, 103

(1979). Indeed, “without some protection for seeking out

the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated.”

Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 681 (1972).

This case implicates one of the most basic journalistic

practices of them all: asking sources within the government

for information. Each day, countless journalists follow this

practice, seeking comment, confirmation, or even “scoops”

from governmental sources. Reasonably so. “A free press

cannot be made to rely solely upon the sufferance of govern-

ment to supply it with information.” Daily Mail, 443 U. S.,

at 104.2

——————

2 That is not to say that the government cannot impose limits on news-

gathering. As the Court has explained, journalists have a right to “seek

news from any source by means within the law.” Branzburg v. Hayes,

408 U. S. 665, 681–682 (1972). The First Amendment, however, neces-

sarily places limits on how far States can go in deeming certain practices

unlawful. This case presents no occasion to consider where that line mayCite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

7

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Guided by these principles, journalists are “free to seek

out sources of information not available to members of the

general public.” Pell, 417 U. S., at 834. Although the press

is not entitled to special access to government information

or facilities, the government also generally “cannot prevent

[the press] from learning about [government functions]” in

a variety of ways, including by “seek[ing] out . . . public of-

ficials.” Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U. S. 1, 15 (1978) (plu-

rality opinion). In other words, the government has no ob-

ligation to make nonpublic information available to

journalists, and if an official declines to provide infor-

mation, the journalist usually has no recourse. See Pell,

417 U. S., at 834.

If, however, an official voluntarily chooses to convey in-

formation, three things are clear. First, only in the rarest

of circumstances can the government prevent or punish the

information’s publication. See Daily Mail, 443 U. S., at 103

(requiring “‘a need to further a state interest of the highest

order’” before punishing); New York Times Co. v. United

States, 403 U. S. 713, 714 (1971) (per curiam) (requiring the

“‘heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition

of such a restraint’” on publication). Second, the govern-

ment is free to discipline the official, the very person it

hired, trained, and supervised in the handling of confiden-

tial information. Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524,

534–535 (1989). Third, the government certainly cannot

punish the journalist simply for making the request.

Villarreal followed this core journalistic practice here.

She asked a source within the local police department about

——————

fall, given that under any conception, asking a public official for nonpub-

lic information as part of the journalist’s verification efforts (with no al-

legations of force, coercion, deception, or bribery, see Villarreal v. Laredo,

94 F. 4th 374, 408, n. 9 (CA5 2024) (Willett, J., dissenting), or suggestions

that the journalist knew the information was protected from disclosure,

see App. 242a) would fall outside of what could be criminalized consistent

with the Constitution.8 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

two incidents that occurred within her community. The

source could have refused to answer Villarreal’s questions.

Instead, the source voluntarily gave Villarreal the infor-

mation she sought, and Villarreal later published it. What

happened next flies in the face of the core guarantee of the

First Amendment: By arresting Villarreal, rather than

solely disciplining the employee for any wrongdoing, county

officials took this “everyday journalism” and transformed it

“into a crime.” Pet. for Cert. 2.

This was a blatant First Amendment violation. No rea-

sonable officer would have thought that he could have ar-

rested Villarreal, consistent with the Constitution, for ask-

ing the questions she asked. Such an arrest is plainly

inconsistent with basic First Amendment principles. See

supra, at 6–7. It is also inconsistent with how officers (in-

cluding the officers in this very county) are trained to inter-

act, and have historically interacted, with the press. See

Brief for Reporters as Amici Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 7–14.

Finally, although there is not a direct, factually analogous

precedent confronting this situation, that is unsurprising

and, more importantly, irrelevant given just how “‘obvi-

ous[ly]’” unconstitutional the officials’ conduct here was.

Wesby, 583 U. S., at 64; Browder v. Albuquerque, 787 F. 3d

1076, 1082–1083 (CA10 2015) (Gorsuch, J.) (“[I]t would be

remarkable if the most obviously unconstitutional conduct

should be the most immune from liability only because it is

so flagrantly unlawful that few dare its attempt”).

B

Despite all of this, the Fifth Circuit held that the arrest

was lawful. Primarily, the court reasoned that because Vil-

larreal alleged that the officials violated her First Amend-

ment rights by arresting her, she had to prove a Fourth

Amendment violation too, which, in its view, she failed toCite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

9

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

do. 94 F. 4th, at 384–385.3 Even assuming such an inquiry

is relevant, the Fifth Circuit’s analysis does not withstand

scrutiny.

First, the Fifth Circuit found that the officials reasonably

believed that they had probable cause to arrest Villarreal

for violating §39.06(c). Id., at 385–390. Not so. Just like

an individual cannot be convicted of a crime for engaging in

First Amendment activity, see Bachellar v. Maryland, 397

U. S. 564, 570–571 (1970), it is axiomatic that a probable-

cause determination cannot be based on such protected ac-

tivity either. As the Court explained in Wayte v. United

States, 470 U. S. 598 (1985), “the decision to prosecute may

not be deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard

such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification, in-

cluding the exercise of protected statutory and constitu-

tional rights.” Id., at 608 (internal quotation marks and ci-

tations omitted). It necessarily follows that when an arrest

is based on protected First Amendment activity, that activ-

ity cannot constitute probable cause and support adverse

police action. All reasonable officers know this.

Second, the Fifth Circuit found that even if probable

cause was lacking, the officials’ actions were still reasona-

ble under the Fourth Amendment. That is because the of-

ficials had acted pursuant to a state statute, and, according

to the court, given that no “final decision of a state court”

had found that statute unconstitutional before Villarreal’s

arrest, the officials could have reasonably relied on the stat-

ute here. 94 F. 4th, at 390–393. In other words, in the

——————

3 The Fifth Circuit at times appeared to disparage Villarreal, describ-

ing her reporting as “capitaliz[ing] on others’ tragedies to propel her rep-

utation and career” and admonishing attempts to “portray her as a mar-

tyr for the sake of journalism.” 94 F. 4th, at 381–382. The First

Amendment does not protect only those journalists whose work is

deemed valuable by judges; rather, it “‘shields [all] who wan[t] to speak

or publish when others wish [them] to be quiet.’” Harper & Row, Pub-

lishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539, 559 (1985).10 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

court’s view, the officials committed a reasonable mistake

of law by presuming that §39.06(c) was constitutional and

enforcing it against Villarreal.

The presence of the state statute, however, does not and

cannot insulate the officials from liability. Just like it is

unreasonable to rely on a statute that is “so grossly and fla-

grantly unconstitutional that any person of reasonable pru-

dence would be bound to see its flaws,” Michigan v. DeFil-

lippo, 443 U. S. 31, 38 (1979), it is also unreasonable to

“enforc[e] a statute in an obviously unconstitutional way,”

94 F. 4th, at 407 (Willett, J., dissenting). Here, it is hard to

conceive of a more obvious constitutional violation than ar-

resting a journalist who, in searching for corroboration,

simply asks a government source for information. That is

the essence of many journalists’ jobs. The arrest does not

somehow become reasonable, and constitutional, merely be-

cause an unconstitutional application of a statute author-

izes it. See 42 U. S. C. §1983 (a state official “shall be lia-

ble” for constitutional violations if he acted “under color of

any [state] statute”).

Finally, the Fifth Circuit held that the officials were

shielded from liability because the Magistrate Judge had

issued the warrants for Villarreal’s arrest. 94 F. 4th, at

393–394. The independent-intermediary doctrine does not

save the officials here. “[T]he fact that a neutral magistrate

[judge] has issued a warrant authorizing the allegedly un-

constitutional” arrest “does not end the inquiry into objec-

tive reasonableness.” Messerschmidt v. Millender, 565

U. S. 535, 547 (2012). Rather, an official can still be held

liable “when ‘it is obvious that no reasonably competent of-

ficer would have concluded that a warrant should issue.’”

Ibid. This standard is satisfied in this case because the ar-

rest was obviously unconstitutional for the reasons ex-

plained above. See supra, at 6–8. Even putting that aside,

the officers here never told the Magistrate Judge how or

why the information was protected from disclosure underCite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

11

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Texas law, see supra, at 3, and n. 1, and there are good rea-

sons to believe that it was not, see 94 F. 4th, at 411–412,

417–418 (Ho, J., dissenting) (making this argument).

C

The Court should have granted the petition to resolve

tension between the decision below and decisions from the

Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits. Those three courts have

each denied officials qualified immunity when those offi-

cials violated individuals’ First Amendment rights by ar-

resting them, even when those officials had argued that the

arrestees’ conduct technically fell within the bounds of a

state law, that they had arguable probable cause for the ar-

rest, and, in one case, that a Magistrate Judge had author-

ized the arrest. See Leonard v. Robinson, 477 F. 3d 347,

352, 356, 361 (CA6 2007) (denying qualified immunity to

officer invoking four statutes to arrest man for saying “God

damn” at township board meeting); Snider v. Cape

Girardeau, 752 F. 3d 1149, 1154, 1157 (CA8 2014) (same for

officer who invoked a statute and secured a warrant from a

Magistrate Judge to arrest citizen for trying to burn and

shred an American flag); Jordan v. Jenkins, 73 F. 4th 1162,

1167, 1171 (CA10 2023) (same for officer who used state ob-

struction of justice statute to arrest a police critic).

The Court’s intervention is warranted because the Fifth

Circuit’s position undermines important bedrock constitu-

tional protections. Under its view, police officers may ar-

rest journalists for core First Amendment activity so long

as they can point to a statute that the activity violated and

that no high state court had previously invalidated,

whether facially or as applied. This rule creates a perverse

scheme in which officials can arrest someone for protected

activity, decline to appeal a trial court’s decision declaring

the statute unconstitutional (as the county did here), and

use qualified immunity to avoid liability by citing back to

that statute. The Court’s decision today prevents12 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

adjudication of whether this statute is constitutional and

the extent to which this journalist’s activities are protected.

The Court thus allows this pattern to repeat.

The Fifth Circuit’s opinion illustrates the implications.

The court criticized Villarreal for asking her questions to a

“backchannel[ed]” source, as opposed to following official

channels to receive her information. 94 F. 4th, at 388–390,

398 (majority opinion). This appears to suggest that had

Villarreal directed her questions to a public relations offi-

cial for the department, for example, she would have fallen

outside the scope of §39.06(c). On the face of the statute

alone, it is not clear why. The statute does not draw a dis-

tinction between the kinds of “public servant[s]” from which

a person “solicits” nonpublic information. §39.06(c). As a

result, it arguably could be leveraged to reach the mundane

act of asking questions to officials at press conferences, or

at crime scenes, when the reporter intends to “benefit” by

publishing any answer, even if she does not receive one.

Under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, however, no individual ar-

rested in any of these circumstances would have recourse.

Because of the Court’s inaction today, neither does Villar-

real.

IV

Below, Villarreal also claimed that the arrest violated her

First Amendment rights in yet another way. Given the al-

leged history between Villarreal and local officials, she said

that she was arrested as retaliation for her prior reporting.

“‘[T]he First Amendment prohibits government officials

from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions’ for en-

gaging in protected speech.” Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U. S.

391, 398 (2019). This is a core protection: “The freedom of

individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action

without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal char-

acteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a po-

lice state.” Houston v. Hill, 482 U. S. 451, 462–463 (1987).Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

13

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

According to Villarreal, for months local officers and pros-

ecutors banded together to target her because they did not

like much of her reporting. She alleged that her arrest was

the culmination of those efforts, bringing to life the oft-cited

danger of a state actor “‘picking the man and then search-

ing the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin

some offense on him.’” Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654,

728 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (quoting R. Jackson, The

Federal Prosecutor, Address Delivered at the Second An-

nual Conference of United States Attorneys, Apr. 1, 1940).

“‘It is this realm[,] in which the prosecutor picks some per-

son whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects

some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an of-

fense, that the . . . danger of abuse of prosecuting power

lies.’” Ibid.

If the events as recounted by Villarreal had occurred to-

day, this would have been a profoundly easy case. As this

Court held in Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U. S. 391, and later

reiterated in Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. 653, although a

plaintiff asserting a retaliatory-arrest claim must normally

“plead and prove the absence of probable cause for the ar-

rest,” probable cause does not defeat her claim if she pro-

duces “objective evidence that [she] was arrested when oth-

erwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the

same sort of protected speech had not been.” Nieves, 587

U. S., at 402, 407. This exception accounts for situations

“where officers have probable cause to make arrests, but

typically exercise their discretion not to do so.” Id., at 406.

The exception surely would be satisfied on the facts as

Villarreal alleged them. Villarreal engaged in protected

speech (her reporting) that she contends is generally unpop-

ular with local officials. Journalists, including those whose

reporting efforts are likely more popular with those offi-

cials, presumably ask about nonpublic information all the

time. Yet, according to Villarreal, she was the first and only

person in Webb County to be arrested for allegedly violating14 VILLARREAL v. ALANIZ

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

§39.06(c) in the statute’s then 23-year history by asking

about nonpublic information. In these circumstances, prob-

able cause, even assuming that it was present, should pose

no bar to Villarreal’s retaliation claim.

Villarreal’s arrest occurred before Nieves, however, so the

Fifth Circuit found the case easy in the other direction. It

pointed to Reichle v. Howards, 566 U. S. 658 (2012), in

which this Court observed that it “has never recognized a

First Amendment right to be free from a retaliatory arrest

that is supported by probable cause.” Id., at 664–665. Ac-

cording to the Fifth Circuit, because Villarreal’s arrest was

apparently supported by probable cause, the officials were

entitled to qualified immunity for her retaliation claim.

That conclusion is wrong for two reasons. First, as ex-

plained, there was no legitimate probable cause barring Vil-

larreal’s retaliation claim. See supra, at 8–11. In the typi-

cal retaliation claim, including the one that Reichle

confronted, an officer arrests an individual for unlawful

conduct not protected by the First Amendment in retalia-

tion for the individual previously exercising her First

Amendment rights. Id., at 660–662. Here, by contrast, the

basis for Villarreal’s arrest was also protected conduct.

Second, even if that distinction were not enough, Villar-

real pleaded that any probable-cause determination was

tainted because the officers misled the Magistrate Judge.

See supra, at 3–4. Under longstanding Circuit precedent,

that taint meant that the officials could not rely on arguable

probable cause to defeat Villarreal’s retaliation claim. See

Hand v. Gary, 838 F. 2d 1420, 1427–1428 (CA5 1988). I

agree with Judge Higginson’s dissent below that, at the mo-

tion-to-dismiss stage, Villarreal was entitled to further fact-

finding to prove the veracity of those allegations. 94 F. 4th,

at 401–404. Because of the Court’s decision not to grant

review today, however, she will never have the opportunity.Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)

15

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

* * *

The First Amendment prohibits “abridging the freedom

. . . of the press.” In our constitutional order, “the press

serves and was designed to serve as a powerful antidote to

any abuses of power by government officials.” Mills v. Ala-

bama, 384 U. S. 214, 219 (1966). Tolerating retaliation

against journalists, or efforts to criminalize routine report-

ing practices, threatens to silence “one of the very agencies

the Framers of our Constitution thoughtfully and deliber-

ately selected to improve our society and keep it free.” Ibid.

By denying Villarreal’s petition, the Court leaves stand-

ing a clear attack on the First Amendment’s role in protect-

ing our democracy. Because this petition should have been

granted, and the Fifth Circuit’s decision should have been

vacated, I respectfully dissent.