Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2019/01/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:46:55+00:00

Document:
Makes a false statement or representation as part of an application or agreement to be employed at an agricultural production facility, if the person knows the statement to be false, and makes the statement with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner of the agricultural production facility, knowing that the act is not authorized.
Judge Gritzner noted and relied upon other recent opinions including the Ninth Circuit's 2018 decision in Animal Defense League Fund v. Wadsen holding most of Idaho's ag-gag law violative of the First Amendment and the district court 2017 decision in Animal Defense Fund v. Herbert holding Utah's ag-gag law unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Judge Gritnzer rejected the argument that the Iowa statute regulated only conduct and found it to be a content-based regulation. But the United States Supreme Court's fractured opinion in United States v. Alvarez (2012), holding unconstitutional the federal "stolen valor" statute criminalizing falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, did not provide an easy answer to the level of scrutiny that should be applied to a content-based falsity regulation. So, much like the Ninth Circuit in Wadsen, Judge Gritnzer applied both strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny, concluding that the statutory provisions failed both. In short, the statute "is so broad in its scope, it is already discouraging the telling of a lie in contexts where harm is unlikely and the need for prohibition is small. The right to make the kinds of false statements implicated by § 717A.3A—whether they be investigative deceptions or innocuous lies—is protected by our country’s guarantee of free speech and expression."
Certainly the trend has been for courts to hold these ag-gag laws unconstitutional.
We hold that the bar in § 2(a) against immoral or scandalous marks is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment.
The Federal Circuit relied heavily on Matal v. Tam (2017) involving the band "the Slants" in which the United States Supreme Court decided that the "disparaging" provision of the same section of the Lanham Act violated the First Amendment. Recall that the Federal Circuit had also decided Matal v. Tam (f/k/a In Re Simon Shiao Tam) en banc, and the litigation in Brunetti has always been somewhat in the shadow of Tam. The Federal Circuit's opinion, rendered more than a year ago, contended that while the "immoral” or “scandalous” provisions might well be viewpoint restrictions as in Tam, they were certainly content discrimination under the First Amendment.
The concurring judge of the Federal Circuit panel in Brunetti argued that the section was amenable to a narrowing and saving construction limited to obscenity (although he agreed that because the name of Brunetti's apparel line was not obscene the trademark was unconstitutionally denied registration). The United State Supreme Court's purpose in granting certiorari is not immediately obvious, but the Under Secretary of Commerce's petition for certiorari picked up the concurring opinion's contention and argued that the Court should not declare the provisions facially unconstitutional.
For his 2018 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, the sexual harassment concerns which surfaced at the end of Chief Justice Roberts 2017 report (which we discussed here) occupied center stage. Opening with an anecdote about the importance of law clerks, the Chief Justice discussed the contribution that the Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group has made, linking to its more than 140 page report issued in June. The Chief Justice noted that the report determined that "inappropriate workplace conduct is not pervasive within the Judiciary, but it also is not limited to a few isolated instances involving law clerks" and that "misconduct, when it does occur, is more likely to take the form of incivility or disrespect than overt sexual harassment" and frequently goes unreported. The Chief Justice noted that committees have proposed changes to various codes of conduct and the employment dispute resolution plan.
Interestingly, the Chief Justice does not note that these codes exclude the United States Supreme Court itself, which is of continuing interest, and which the Chief Justice has alluded to in the past, as we last discussed here. Although he writes that "The Supreme Court will supplement its existing internal initiatives and experience of the other federal courts."
The Chief Justice again thanked judicial staff for working through numerous natural disasters, but again did not address the declining diversity of the federal bench, a lack we mentioned last year and which has seemingly only increased.
image: John Roberts being sworn-in as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States by Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, 2005, via.

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