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SAN DIEGO

When San Diego police officers opened the front door to Rosa Calvas apartment studio in East Village, the 26-year-old was holed up in her bathroom.

Calva, in the throes of a mental health crisis, had thrown items a bucket, mop and more out of a window and onto the street below. A bystander reported being struck by flying glass.

Newly released body-worn camera video shows that in a span of 20 minutes, officers gave her repeated commands to walk out of the 5-by-5-foot bathroom and surrender as a police dog barked repeatedly. When she did not, they used a tool known as a Halligan bar to enlarge a hole they noticed in the door, then fired pepperball rounds inside.

The officers and the police dog then moved in. The officers kicked open the bathroom door and, within seconds, Calva, who was holding a steak knife, was shot four times and bitten by the dog.

Police at the time said Calva threatened officers with the knife. The footage shows she was holding the knife in air, the blade pointed up, when Officer Andres Ruiz shot her in the chest and abdomen.

Calva was seriously injured but survived. She was arrested and later charged in San Diego Superior Court with assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer. Her case is still pending.

The series of events was captured on the officers body-worn cameras, but the San Diego Police Department withheld the footage for two years despite a state law enacted in 2019 that mandates the release of video related to such shootings within 45 days, with few exceptions.

The law is intended to increase transparency in cases of shootings by police officers.

The Police Department released the footage May 20, three weeks after the First Amendment Coalition, which advocates for open and transparent government, sent the city attorney a letter that argued the law required police to disclose the video. The coalition also threated to sue.

Along with the body-worn camera video, the Police Department released reports and other records tied to the now-completed investigation. The records reveal that the San Diego County District Attorneys Office cleared Ruiz and that the department determined the officer followed policy.

But the shooting, in light of the footage, has raised concerns.

One use-of-force expert, former Los Angeles County sheriffs lieutenant Roger Clark, said the officers failed to properly handle the situation. Clark, who reviewed the records last week at the Union-Tribunes request, said officers forced a confrontation at a moment when Calva was not a danger to the public.

This is not de-escalation, Clark said.

Rosa Garcia last year as she speaks over the phone with staff at Las Colinas Detention Facility to inquire about her daughter, Rosa Calva, who was shot by San Diego police on May 23 and later charged in San Diego Superior Court in connection with the incident.

(David Hernandez/San Diego Union-Tribune)

The Commission on Police Practices, which reviewed the departments internal investigation into the shooting, also raised concerns. In a report to the department, commissioners said they hoped the department realized there are other means of de-escalation available and urged the department to consider additional training in that regard.

Calvas mother, Rosa Garcia, said she believes police used excessive force and wants accountability. Two years after the shooting, Garcia still is deeply troubled about the way police treated her daughter.

My daughter is not El Chapo, Garcia said. Shes mentally ill.

San Diego police spokesperson Lt. Adam Sharki said the department holds its members to the highest professional standards.

We hear the communitys concerns about this incident, he said.

He said shootings by officers are rare and reviewed thoroughly.

Even if a shooting is deemed lawful and within policy, the department continues to review the tactics and actions of the officer to determine if there are learning points which can be incorporated into training going forward, Sharki said in a statement.

He said Ruiz remains a San Diego police officer.

It was around 9:50 p.m. on May 23, 2020, when police started receiving 911 calls about Calva. Several callers said she had broken her window in her fourth-floor apartment on Market Street near Park Boulevard and was throwing items, including a bucket, mop and folding chair, onto the street below. Two callers said they thought Calva might jump out of the window.

Audio of the 911 calls indicate one caller told a dispatcher he was struck by glass. He told the dispatcher he did not need medical attention.

According to the reports and the body-worn-camera video, officers tried to call Calva, but the number they had did not work. Officers summoned additional resources, including a police dog, and entered the apartment building. They gathered in a hallway on Calvas floor and shouted orders for her to surrender.

Outside, officers saw Calva near the window, waiving a knife, according to officers account of the incident.

Around 11 p.m. officers used a key to open the front door. They noticed blood smeared on the floor and cabinets, although is unclear in the records why the blood was there, or if Calva had hurt herself.

A police canine handler ordered Calva to walk out.

Rosa, this is San Diego police. Were not going anywhere. We want to help you, the officer shouts, according to body-worn camera video.

The officer then tells her she is under arrest and warns her that if she doesnt surrender, police would release a dog. The officer repeats commands as the police dog continues to bark.

There is no response inside the apartment, according to the video, so the police dog and two officers enter the unit and clear the common areas.

An officer then grabs a Halligan bar and hammers the bathroom door, enlarging an existing hole. Another officer fires several volleys of pepperball rounds through the hole.

Some officers had donned gas masks to protect themselves from the pepper spray-like chemicals. Others cough repeatedly. There is still no response from Calva.

The canine handler then sends the dog to squeeze through the hole, but the canine struggles to enter. Calva pokes her hand through the hole, with the knife in hand.

The handler orders the dog to go In, in, in, in! but to no avail as he and Ruiz trail behind.

Ruiz is seen in the video kicking open the bathroom door, but Calva is behind it. The dog handler struggles to open the door all the way.

When the handler finally enters the bathroom, he grabs Calva and appears to push her body, as if to try to pin her against a wall. He grips her right hand as she holds the knife in the air, the blade pointed upwards.

Ruiz appears to aim under the handlers torso and shoots Calva at close range. She falls to the ground and the police dog bites her left arm.

The knife lands near the toilet.

The shooting marked the fourth time Ruiz fired his gun in the line of duty. In the first two shootings, then-District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis cleared him. Her office did not review the third because no one was struck by Ruizs gunfire.

In the most recent case, Ruiz told investigators Calva was about to stab the other officer in the face. District Attorney Summer Stephan noted that the evidence indicates Ruiz was incorrect; the blade was pointed toward the ceiling. But, Stephan said, Ruizs perception in the moment was reasonable because Calva didnt drop the weapon.

Under the totality of circumstances, Ruiz was justified in shooting Calva, Stephan wrote in a letter to the Police Department.

San Diego police Detective Sgt. Jared Thompson reviewed the case for any policy violations and reached a conclusion similar to Stephans: He said that based on all of the circumstances, it was reasonable for Ruiz to believe Calva, with a knife in hand, presented an imminent threat which justified the shooting. Thompson said in a report that officers tried to de-escalate the situation for nearly 30 minutes, citing the commands officers gave Calva and their use of a police dog and peperball rounds.

Clark, the use-of-force expert, said the officers took the wrong approach and escalated the situation with their use of a police dog and pepperballs. He said Calva was contained in the bathroom, which did not require officers to act quickly to subdue her.

This should never have happened this way, he said.

He said a basic lesson rookie officers are taught is if you increase the stress, (a persons) ability to comply decreases.

What I see in these videos is, Youre going to do this my way, exactly as I tell you, or Im going to come and get you, because I am the police, Clark said. Thats the culture. They know they can do this stuff. Theyre not culpable.

Clark said police should have summoned crisis negotiators. The San Diego Police Department has an Emergency Negotiations Team, which works to persuade individuals to surrender, including individuals who are suicidal or barricaded. The team tries to engage in dialogue instead of force.

Clark was one of three use-of-force experts the Union-Tribune contacted. Others did not respond or were unavailable.

Police reform advocate Tasha Williamson, who also requested the body-worn camera video under state law, said she believes the Police Department withheld the footage because it does not show the department in a good light.

She shared several of the same criticisms as Clark. She said the shooting shows that officers unnecessarily put themselves in danger and in situations where they end up feeling the need to use force.

Why not wait this out? Why not call SWAT? Why not have negotiators come in? Why not do all the precautions that are needed to save her life and diminish the risk to officers instead of saying we waited 25 to 40 minutes and that was enough time? she asked. Her life is worth hours.

The reality for us in the community is this was withheld because it was horrific, she said.

The incident occurred two days before the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, which at the time led to protests and outrage over police brutality and racial injustice. Williamson said she believes the video was withheld to mitigate public outcry in the aftermath.

The San Diego Police Department at the time denied requests for the video, citing an investigation and a criminal case against Calva.

David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, said the public had the right to see the videos a while ago, at least once the investigation into the shooting wrapped up, if not earlier. He said state law does not allow agencies to withhold video of shootings by police officers based on ongoing court proceedings.

An exception in the law allows agencies to withhold video if they prove that the release of the footage would interfere with an active investigation, but Loy said the Police Department did not do that. He added that at some point the argument that an investigation was ongoing was not plausible.

When they want to release body-cam video of shootings, they do it, and they do it right away, Loy said.

Calva was charged in San Diego Superior Court with assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon on an officer, with a special allegation that she was armed with a knife.

A judge ruled later based on a psychiatric evaluation that Calva was mentally incompetent to stand trial and suspended the court case until her competency could be restored. The ruling was based on a finding that Calva was unable to understand the court proceedings and assist in her own defense. As is common in such cases, Calva was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County for treatment.

Calva later returned to San Diego County and was allowed to undergo treatment as part of the countys Mental Health Diversion program. If Calva completes the treatment, her case will be dismissed.

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San Diego police shot a mentally ill woman who had a knife in 2020; they just released the video - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Being a federal judge is a tough job.

You have to clean up all the screwed up things Congress does. And sometimesand this is even worseyou have to clean up all the screwed up things state legislatures do.

Tall task.

Take the Florida Mini-TCPA, for instance. This thing is plainly unconstitutionaland for a number of reasons. Although it is a restriction on speech it is impossible to know what it applies towhats an autodialer? whats a sales call? who is exempt? I dare you to answer those questions in plain Englishso it is void for vagueness. It is also plainly a contents-specific speech-control paradigm that violates the First Amendment.

The good folks at Subway Franchise Advertising Fund took the first crack at raising these arguments recently and they didnt win. But thats ok. It takes a very brave judge to strike down a statute on constitutional grounds and many ties the federal bench needs several exposures to an argument before it sticks. So I am grateful that SFAF took a shot here, although there is one tweak needed (badly) to their argument.

The case at issue isTurizo v. SFAF. I can send you a copy if you want to read it.

So lets start with the bad argument. SFAF argued that only systems that meet theFacebookdefinition of ATDS can be an autodialer under the Florida statute.

That argument is how can I put this gently? ridiculously bad (at least standing alone).

The TCPA defines ATDS to include an ROSNG. The Florida autodialer definition does not. SoFacebooksrequirement of ROSNG usage is entirely unrelated to Floridas definition. So thats just a terrible argument.

In fairness, however, SFAF likely brought the argument primarily to tether its void for vagueness argument. SFAF pivoted and argued, in essence, if the FTSA isnt coextensive with the TCPA then the FTSAs autodialer definition is meaningless and should be struck down. The second part of that sentence is correctthe FTSAs autodialer definitionismeaninglessbut there was no reason (IMO) to pin that reality toFacebook.

In other words, by leading with a weak FTSA = TCPA argument to frame out the void for vagueness pitch. I think SFAF simply shot itself in the foot. BUT they still did a nice job of raising void for vagueness in the first instance. And I want to see more of that from others.

SFAF also raisedwellthe broader First Amendment implications of the FTSA through the lens ofReedandAAPC.And I LOVE the way theTurizocourt framed the issue directly doesReedandAAPC(on the one hand) crush and destroy the oldCentral Hudsontest?

That is the correct question. The correct answer is YES, where the restriction is content specific and no where the restriction is content neutral.

TheTurizocourt didnt quite get there not sure SFAF gave the answer as crisply as I just did and concluded that because neitherReednorAAPCdealt with commercial speech it was impossible to say, for sure, whether theCentral Hudsontest had been abrogated (but it has been.)

Plus theTurizocourt had an easy way to bail itself out the Eleventh Circuit has continued applying Central Hudson post-Reed. SoTurizowent ahead and adopted the old CH test, notwithstanding the fact that the Eleventh Circuits decision was totally unrelated.

Bottom line: SFAF took a first brave step in challenging the FTSAs constitutionality. It wasnt perfectthey also bloated it up with junky preemption and dormant commerce clause arguments that were going nowherebut they tried. And I give them credit for it.

But the FTSAisdoomed. It simply will not stand the test of time because it IS unconstitutional. It will take a few knocks on the door, but eventually the First Amendment will be answered.

Read this article:
Litigation Starting Against Stat's TCPA's - The National Law Review

So the Eleventh Circuit held today inU.S. v. Jimenez-Shilon, in an opinion by Judge Kevin Newsom, joined by Judges Elizabeth Branch and Andrew Brasher; the opinion focused on Framing-era history, and concludes,

[Under eighteenth-century law,] aliens could not surreptitiously enter a foreign nation in violation of the immigration prerogatives of the sovereign and expect to receive all the rights and protections of the citizenry. Nor can they do so today.

Other courts have likewise upheld the federal ban that was upheld in this opinion, but generally without such detailed historical analysis.

Judge Newsom also adds a separate concurrence, in which he questions the use of strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and similar tests both as to the Second Amendment and as to other constitutional rights, such as the First Amendment. Allowing constitutional rights to be overcome by compelling or substantial government interests, he argues, "elevates the normative views of 'we the judges' over 'We the People' through an ill-defined balancing test." And, turning to the First Amendment, he adds:

It's not just that the [First Amendment strict scrutiny / intermediate scrutiny] doctrine is exhaustingalthough it certainly is that. It's that the doctrine is judge-empowering and, I fear, freedom-diluting. If we, as judges, concludeas I've said we shouldthat Second Amendment rights shouldn't be casually balanced away by reference to manipulable means-ends balancing tests, we might need to start asking the bigger question: On what basis can we do exactly that when dealing with other, equally fundamental rights?

Of course, this is just a quick summary of the results the opinion and the concurrence reaches; for more, see here.

Link:
"Illegal Aliens" "May Be 'Disqualified from' Possessing Arms Without Violating the Second Amendment" - Reason

An intra-congregational dispute over control of church bank accounts led the Wakefield Missionary Baptist Church to a schism that forced out a senior pastor, saw church doors locked, and resulted in competing factions worshipping under the banner of a once-united unincorporated association. In McKnight v. Wakefield Missionary Baptist Church, Inc., 2022 NCBC 10, the Business Court confronted a tangle of disputes between dissident church factions largely out of its reach given the First Amendments edict that the judiciary may not resolve ecclesiastical questions or resolve controversies over religious doctrine and practice.

The Court found a path under which neutral principles of law would allow it to determine whether a purported vote of the churchs congregation to approve the pastors dismissal and reorganize itself as an incorporated entity was valid. Over its 150-year existence, Wakefield had been a congregational church that was self-governing and that in a more recently adopted constitution and bylaws entrusted that authority in its members. Id. 3. But when the congregation approved movement of Wakefields property into the new incorporated form, a dissident faction challenged and sought to undo the splintering.

A challenge to that action in North Carolina faced long odds given that the congregation has the right to control the church, including the authority to change its customs and rule upon earlier church decisions. Graham v. Lockhart, 42 N.C. App. 377, 379 (1979). Thus, the Business Court determined that when the incorporated entity re-opened and its 37 members in attendance unanimously ratified its change in form, the movement of Wakefields property, and the termination of its pastor, the churchs governing body had declared the matter closed. NCBC 10, 7, 18.

But even that deference to the boundaries of North Carolina law left the Court resolving a dispute using neutral principles that could not fully resolve even the underlying controversy over the propriety of the congregations action. For instance, congregants who didnt join the group which incorporated thought they still constituted Wakefield, and that those who voted for ratification had ceased to be church members. Judge Conrad noted that [t]he Court has no business rendering a decision that would, in effect, excommunicate church members for siding with one faction over another in matters of church governance. Id. 17.

Yet, even in ruling that the Court could not overrule the congregations edict, a neutral decision about who constituted the churchs governing body was weighted with the baggage of which of Wakefields congregants could continue to worship under a dearly held 150-year-old church banner and which could not. Id. 20.

Trade Name Infringement

The Business Courts decision was also freighted with the responsibility to tackle which of Wakefields dissident groups could appropriately use its name. Judge Conrad observed that, too, posed tricky First Amendment issues because [w]hat a church or other house of worship chooses to call itself is, after all, an expression of its religious identity. Id. 58. Perhaps that is why, the Court noted, the North Carolina Supreme Court has avoided resolving whether an injunction may be issued to forbid one church to use a name similar to that of another church. Id. (quoting Bd. Of Provincial Elders v. Jones, 273 N.C. 174, 184 (1968)). The issue was resolved, ironically enough, on the principle that:

[t]he right to use the name inheres in the institution, not in its members; and when they cease to be members of the institution, use by them of the name is misleading and, if injurious to the institution, should be enjoined.

Daniel v. Wray, 158 N.C. App. 161, 173 (2003). Here, then, the power of the congregations members fueled the change in corporate form, but it was then the newly formed entity that controlled use of the Wakefield name as its organizing label.

Takeaways

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A Business Court Finds There is Little Neutral Ground in Disputes Over Church Business - JD Supra

These remarks were delivered by Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center,at a May 2, 2022, celebration of the newly installed marble First Amendment tablet, donated to the National Constitution Center by the Freedom Forum. Its design and installation was made possible through the generosity of Judge J. Michael Luttig and Elizabeth Luttig.

Thank you, Judge [J. Michael] Luttig, for your gift to America in bringing the First Amendment Tablet to Philadelphia. Its fitting that the 45 words of the First Amendment will shine forever over Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were drafted. As we prepare to dedicate the Tablet, lets gaze together at Independence Hall and then turn our attention back to the words of the Tablet that are shining before us. Holding these two images in our minds is illuminating, because the First Amendment shows us the connection between the Declaration and the Constitution. It protects freedom of conscience, which the Founders considered first among the unalienable rights enshrined in the Preamble to the Declaration and first among the blessings of liberty enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution.

How do we know that the rights of conscience, as the Founders called them, were first among the unalienable rights and the blessings of liberty recognized by the Declaration and the Constitution? We know that from two other sacred texts Id like to talk to you about now, as we dedicate the First Amendment Tablet together. Those text are Thomas Jeffersons Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia, drafted in 1777, and Justice Brandeiss opinion in Whitney v. California, drafted in 1927.

Jefferson drafted his bill in Virginia months after he returned Philadelphia, where he had just completed the Declaration of Independence. He considered his Religious Freedom Bill among the three accomplishments of his life important enough to be inscribed on his tombstone, along with his having drafted the Declaration and founded the University of Virginia.

Under Virginias colonial religious code, all dissenters were required to support and attend the Established Anglican church. Presbyterians and Baptists could be arrested for practicing their faith or preaching the gospel. Quakers, Jews, and other dissenters could be denied the freedom to marry or to have custody of their children. Jefferson proposed not only to disestablish the Anglican Church and remove all criminal punishments for dissent, but also to prohibit all compelled support for religion of any kind. He concluded that because freedom of conscience is a fundamental right, government can regulate overt acts against peace and good order, but it lacks all power to intrude into the field of opinion.

Jeffersons Bill sets out four reasons why government can make no law that constrains our freedom of speech, conscience, or opinion. Those four reasons were summed up by Justice Brandeis in Whitney, and they have been further developed by the Supreme Court since then:

1. Freedom of conscience is an unalienable right because people can only think for themselves;

2. Free speech makes representatives accountable to We the People;

3. Free speech is necessary for the discovery of truth and the rejection of falsehood;

4. Free speech allows the public discussion necessary for democratic self government.

Lets review each of Jeffersons four reasons.

1. Freedom of conscience is an unalienable right

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds, Jefferson wrote in the first sentence of his draft, God hath created the mind free,and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint. In other words, Jefferson argued, freedom of conscience is, by definition, an unalienable right one that cant be alienated or surrendered to government because our opinions are the involuntary result of the evidence contemplated by our reasoning minds. We cant give presidents, priests, teachers, or fellow citizens the power to think for us, even if we wanted to, because we are endowed as human beings with the capacity to reason and therefore cant help thinking for ourselves. We know that Madison, the drafter of the First Amendment, shared Jeffersons views because he echoed them in his Memorial and Remonstrance in 1785, which persuaded the Virginia legislature to pass Jeffersons bill. The rights of conscience are unalienable, Madison wrote, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men.

2. Free speech makes representatives accountable to We the People.

In his Religious Freedom Bill, Jefferson emphasized that its crucial in a democracy for citizens to be able to criticize public officials because legislators and religious leaders, being themselves fallible and uninspired, will always try to impose their own opinions and modes of thinking on others. His prediction came to a head in the controversy of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, where the Federalist Congress made it a crime to criticize the Federalist President, John Adams, but not the Republican Vice President, Thomas Jefferson. And Madison, once again, echoed Jeffersons views in his Virginia Resolution, which said the Sedition Act ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures which is the only effectual guardian of every other right.

3. Free speech is necessary for the discovery and spread of political truth.

Jefferson concludes his Religious Freedom Bill with words expressing his unshakeable faith in the power of reasoned deliberation to distinguish truth from error, words that are inscribed in marble on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington: truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate.

4. Free speech allows the public discussion necessary for democratic self-government.

Jefferson believed that in a democracy, all citizens have an equal right and responsibility to exercise their rights of conscience. As Jefferson put it in his Virginia Bill, proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right.

On the Supreme Court, in the greatest free speech opinion of the twentieth century, Justice Louis Brandeis distilled Jeffersons four reasons for protecting free speech into a few inspiring paragraphs. In the case, Whitney v. California, we see the first Jewish Justice insisting on the right of Anita Whitney, a white woman, to make a speech defending anti-lynching laws, which were designed to protect the life and liberty of African Americans. Whitney made her speech at a Communist Party meeting, and she was convicted under a California law that made it a crime to associate with organizations that advocated doctrines that might lead to people to break the law. In 1926, Brandeis had read Jeffersons original draft of the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. In his Whitney opinion in 1927, Brandeis adopted and refined Jeffersons standard for ensuring that government could only punish overt acts of lawbreaking, not the expression of dangerous opinions.

As Brandeis put it in Whitney, Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. [And] There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent.

Brandeiss inspiring test government can ban speech only if its intended to and likely to cause imminent and serious injury was based on his Jeffersonian faith in the power of what he called free and fearless reasoning to expose falsehood through public discussion. As Brandeis put it, If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Brandeiss test was finally adopted by the Supreme Court in 1969. As a result, the United States Supreme Court now protects free speech more vigorously than any other judiciary in the world.

Brandeis went on to summarize Jeffersons four reasons for why government cannot make laws designed to restrict what Jefferson called the illimitable freedom of the human mind. And in the process he achieved a kind of constitutional poetry. I will now read Brandeiss central passage listen closely for each of Jeffersons four reasons: freedom of conscience, democratic accountability, discovery of truth, and democratic self-government.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. [Thats a quotation from Pericles funeral oration]. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

But as this paragraph shows, all four of Jefferson and Brandeiss reasons for protecting free speech are based on an Enlightenment faith in reason itself. The First Amendment is based on a faith that people will take the time to develop their faculties of reason, through education and public discussion; that public deliberation will check arbitrary and partisan demagogues rather than enable them; that more speech will lead to the spread of more truth rather than more falsehood; and that people will, in fact, take time for discussion and deliberation, rather than make impulsive decisions.

This founding faith in reason is being questioned in our polarized age of social media. Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms are based on a business model thats now being called enrage to engage. They have accelerated public discourse to warp speed, creating virtual versions of the mob. Inflammatory posts based on passion travel farther and faster than arguments based on reason. Rather than encouraging deliberation, mass media undermine it by creating bubbles and echo chambers in which citizens see only those opinions they already embrace. For these reasons, some are calling for Americas free speech tradition to be reconsidered or abandoned.

Here at the National Constitution Center, by contrast, we are proud to reaffirm the faith in reasoned deliberation by consecrating the 45 words that will shine forever in this hallowed space. As a vital platform for non partisan education and debate, we bring together Americans of different perspectives to cultivate their faculties of reason. Only by listening to the best arguments on all sides of the constitutional questions at the center of American life can all of us exercise our right and duty to make up our own minds. Like Jefferson and Brandeis and Frederick Douglass and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and all of the great free speech heroes of America history, we are dedicated to preserving, protecting, and defending what Jefferson called the illimitable freedom of the human mind. May the shining words of the First Amendment Tablet inspire future generations with this self-evident truth: reason will always combat error as long as individuals are free to follow the dictates of conscience wherever it boldly leads. On behalf of all of us at the National Constitution Center, thanks again to Jan Neuharth and Judge Luttig for making this memorable ceremony possible, and thanks to all of you for joining us.

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From Jefferson to Brandeis: The First Amendment, the Declaration, and the Constitution - National Constitution Center