{"id":8189,"date":"2015-10-03T08:27:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T13:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/?p=8189"},"modified":"2015-10-03T08:28:25","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T13:28:25","slug":"scotus-to-hear-free-speech-case-of-paterson-po-demoted-over-political-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/scotus-to-hear-free-speech-case-of-paterson-po-demoted-over-political-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS to hear free speech case of Paterson PO demoted over political sign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_8190\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8190\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstamendment3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstamendment3-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"first amendment for everyone\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8190\" srcset=\"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstamendment3-225x300.jpg 225w, http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstamendment3-169x225.jpg 169w, http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstamendment3.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8190\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Art courtesy of My First Freedoms website<\/figcaption><\/figure>Paterson Police Officer Jeffrey Heffernan&#8217;s discipline case is going to the Supreme Court. The 1st Amendment provides for employees to support the political candidates of their choosing, but lower courts found that Heffernan couldn&#8217;t invoke this legal protection because he had no intention of participating in a campaign when he picked up a fallen sign that his mother wanted. He also isn&#8217;t a Paterson resident.<\/p>\n<p>But still, Heffernan was demoted because city officials perceived him to be engaged in &#8220;overt involvement in a political election&#8221;. So, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northjersey.com\/news\/u-s-supreme-court-to-hear-appeal-of-paterson-officer-demoted-over-political-sign-incident-1.1424433\">heart of this matter remains free speech rights<\/a>. NorthJersey.com reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Mark B. Frost, a Philadelphia lawyer representing Heffernan, said that ruling could have a &#8220;chilling effect&#8221; unless the Supreme Court overturns it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a national issue that will affect potentially thousands of employees throughout the country,&#8221; Frost said. &#8220;What difference does it make if an individual is perceived to be aligned with a particular party or if they are not? It&#8217;s still retaliation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear only 75 to 80 cases each year \u2014 out of more than 10,000 requests &#8230; Frost said the high court frequently takes on legal questions that have divided lower courts across the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Artwork courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/cojmc.unl.edu\/firstamendment\/funfacts.php\">My First Freedoms<\/a> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paterson Police Officer Jeffrey Heffernan&#8217;s discipline case is going to the Supreme Court. The 1st Amendment provides for employees to support the political candidates of their choosing, but lower courts found that Heffernan couldn&#8217;t invoke this legal protection because he had no intention of participating in a campaign when he picked up a fallen sign &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/scotus-to-hear-free-speech-case-of-paterson-po-demoted-over-political-sign\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;SCOTUS to hear free speech case of Paterson PO demoted over political sign&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[979,1,5,1787,563,160,1192],"tags":[1660,2073,218,2072,1914],"class_list":["post-8189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-all","category-government-trade","category-in-nj","category-justice","category-news-truths","category-politics-2","tag-1st-amendment","tag-fired","tag-paterson","tag-police-officer","tag-scotus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8189"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8196,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions\/8196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}