Judge tosses another white supremacist's suit over tiny post-Charlottesville rally on the Common
A man who sued Marty Walsh, Charlie Baker and William Evans because he couldn't find his way to the Parkman Bandstand for what turned out to be a tiny post-Charlottesville rantfest through the far larger throngs of protesters that surrounded the platform in 2017 had his First Amendment and conspiracy case tossed by a federal judge today.
The dismissal, coming nearly three months after another federal judge dismissed another suit by another guy who never actually showed up at the bandstand, leaves just one more suit, by a man who did show up that day - failed serial Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai, although he's a bit busy these days suing state elections officials over their alleged world-girdling conspiracy to deprive him of his rightful election last year and to get Twitter to take away his account.
In his ruling, US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin basically said that Samson Racioppi, who was a student at New England Law when he brought the suit last year, had no case, that there was nothing wrong in public officials coordinating a security plan to deal with a potentially controversial event, that there was nothing unconstitutional about that plan and that the three officials said nothing malicious, or, in fact, anything at all, about Racioppi.
Racioppi charged they violated his First Amendment rights by keeping him from the bandstand. But that's not what they did, Sorokin wrote, adding they also did nothing to order underlings to deprive Racioppi of his First Amendment right to yell into the void from the Parkman Bandstand, where only one person - Ayyadurai - brought a loudspeaker, and it didn't work.
Althought Boston Police had established a tight security perimeter around the handful of alt-rightists and other Trump fans on the bandstand, they did have one opening for participants to use. Racioppi's sole interaction with anybody from BPD was when he asked a Boston cop how to get to the bandstand, but Racioppi stopped on his way to the opening to give some interviews and by the time he was done, police had closed off the entry point to swarm a bit closer to the bandstand, according to Sorokin's summary of his case.
Racioppi's monetary claims agains the three for coordinating a security plan for the controversial rally the week after a rightwinger used his car to murder a woman in Charlottesville, VA fail because the Eleventh Amendment bars monetary suits against public officials for doing something as part of their jobs, Sorokin wrote. Racioppi had sought a total of $260 million in damages.
And so, Sorokin concluded;
Racioppi has failed to allege facts plausibly showing either deliberate indifference or the causal link necessary to support claims against the three named defendants. The Amended Complaint does not sufficiently identify a specific policy resulting in the alleged deprivation; it makes only blanket reference to a “security plan” and a bald assertion that harm resulted from that undescribed plan. ...
The Amended Complaint also fails to show a causal link between anything the named defendants did and the harm Racioppi says he suffered. The allegations against the defendants are fairly summarized as follows: based on their status and authority as public officials as well as their public statements, the defendants must have coordinated in advance of the Boston rally, must have known the (unspecified) contents of the security plan developed for that event, and must have known and intended that the plan would harm the event and impair the rights of its speakers.In the very case Racioppi cites - Pereira-Castillo - the First Circuit found such allegations insufficient to ground a plausible claim of supervisory liability under [federal law]. Thus, Racioppi’s constitutional claims against Governor Baker, Walsh, and Evans fail.
Sorokin also rejected Racioppi's allegation that the three public officials engaged in a conspiracy to thwart his Constitutional rights. That three public officials had come to a general "meeting of the minds" on how to deal broadly with the supposed rally is not a conspiracy, he wrote.
And Racioppi failed to prove his assertion that
Walsh and Evans should or must have learned of Racioppi’s statements to the media disclaiming affiliation with hate groups, and that the question from a reporter about a Black Lives Matter speaker slated for the event should have caused Walsh to doubt whether the Boston rally participants were members of a hate group.
So the two officials were protected by "conditional immunity" as part of their jobs as public officials, Sorokin wrote, adding that even if they weren't public officials, the defamation claim would fail because, again, they never mentioned Racioppi by name.
Racioppi makes no factual allegations plausibly suggesting that by referring to the group, the speakers were making statements “of or concerning” him. Without this, Racioppi has failed to state a claim for defamation.
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Comments
I was happy to
do my part in oppressing these alt-right victims and quash their “right” to agitate racist aggression. Samson, whom I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with, is a windbag idiot and I hope this exercise cost him $$$.
Some of the organizers of the 2017 event were in the Capitol 1/6.
Wasn't the entire point of
Wasn't the entire point of the judgement that their right to free speech was not twarted? You provided a huge counter balance to their voice thereby twarting their message but not their right to speech and public assembly.
My point is if enough people used the language you just did or the public officials did then they may have won the case and it could lead to a requirement in the future that voices like this be given more public protection. They said what they said and were allowed to do so. A billion other people counterpointed and everybody had their rights upheld. It might sound like semantics but it makes a difference in cases like this. There is no need to make these idiots into matryrs of their causes by tossing around concepts like their rights were twarted even if its "twarted"
Samson was at the insurrection…
…6 months ago today. Although there is no evidence he entered the Capitol Building, he has posted video of himself at the east perimeter. He is also BFF with arrested Malden insurrectionist Mark Sahady.
Racioppi has made repeated claims that he is not a white supremacist, but he was slated to speak at the event which was chock full of white supremacists and pro-fascists, such as a leading member of the white supremacist Proud Boys and noted insurrectionist Joe Biggs, Hoclocaust denier Augustus Sol Invictus, and Kyle Chapman who, on probation for violent attacks during Proud Boy riots, felt the Proud Boys weren’t racist and anti-Semitic enough so he splintered off to fight “tokenism” and “white genocide”. Also at the event were noted white supremacists Gavin McInnes (founder of the Proud Boys) and Cassandra Fairbanks.
Interesting friends that Samson allies with, don’t you think?
that s.o.b. is a brown shirt!
Racioppi either founded or is part of
"Free Kyle Rittenhouse"...that little shit.
To Walpole with ALL of them!
How do you spot a traitor?
They bring assault rifles to public assemblies.
May they......roast.......in.........hell.
Law student?
I predict that's a career where he will go far.
It's a right wing strategy
It's a right-wing strategy going back at least 40 years, to groom their youth for careers in what they laughably call "politics" by training them to be dogwhistling anklebiters. Seeing advances in civil rights through the courts and legislation in the '60s and '70s, the right's response was to raise a new crop of lawyers to take over as legislators and judges. Their quality control was negligible, of course (we are talking about the right, after all), but even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and that's where you get an Elise Stefanik. There's no evidence that Racioppi comes from this particular pipeline, though - if he did, he wouldn't be so damn disorganized, and would never have been chairman of the board of MassCANN, much less put it on his resume. He's just a jumped up wet behind the ears right wing dimwit white boy who thinks he's the master race, and therefore, why not run for Congress as a college junior? Never mind what the Constitution says, Samson knows better!
Hilarious choice of words!
" failed serial Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai"
omg that's funny!