Justices Troubled By Their Earlier Ruling On Public Employee Speech Rights
In oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Monday, Justices seemed to be open to considering overturning precedent regarding the free speech rights of public employees that was set by the court only years earlier. The present case revolves around an Alabama State manager who was retaliated against for testifying that he had fired an employee for charging weeks? worth of time to taxpayers without ever performing any work. Under the precedent set by the Supreme Court ruling in the 2006 decision, Garcetti v. Ceballos a lower court had ruled that the manager had no First Amendment protections with regard to his official responsibilities. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia who supported and authored the 2006 decision, but in transcripts from the arguments this week seem to acknowledge that the decision lacked definition and guidance to allow for the protection of the disclosure of illegal or dangerous activities. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Kennedy also seemed to indicate that at least some, if not most, speech by public employees regarding their official responsibilities should be protected.
See "Justices Troubled By Their Earlier Ruling On Public Employee Speech Rights", Nina Totenberg, NPR Online, April 29, 2014