Victory: Federal judge finds “overwhelming evidence” that City of Baton Rouge violated free speech rights of Most & Associates’ client.

On January 7, 2022, a federal judge ordered the City of Baton Rouge to withdraw its request for contempt sanctions against Most & Associates’ client Thomas Frampton, a law professor who had publicized video footage of Baton Rouge Police Department misconduct. Professor Frampton had been facing up to six months in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison until the ruling. Professor Frampton is represented by a legal team made up of Most & Associates, the Tulane First Amendment Clinic, Jane Hogan of Hogan Attorneys, and the ACLU of Louisiana.

Frampton is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. In early 2021, Professor Frampton represented the Green family of Baton Rouge pro bono in a civil rights case against the City of Baton Rouge. The lawsuit addressed what another federal judge had called a “serious and wanton disregard” of the Green family’s constitutional rights by Baton Rouge Police Department officers. In May of 2021, the family settled the claims with the City.

Following the settlement, and at the Green family’s request, Prof. Frampton publicly shared body camera footage (available here) of the BRPD officers’ treatment of the Green family. On May 27, 2021, the video became a national news story: the CBS Evening news ran a piece entitled “Baton Rouge reaches $35,000 settlement with family after police strip-searched teen and entered home without warrant.”

The very next day, the City of Baton Rouge went to court and asked that Frampton be found “in contempt.” Frampton then filed suit in federal court, arguing that the City was retaliating against him for exercising his freedom of speech.

The federal judge agreed with Professor Frampton. In a scathing 92-page opinion, Judge deGravelles, of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, decided that:

[T]he overwhelming evidence in the case . . . shows the City/Parish acted in bad faith and in retaliation against the Professor for his issuance of a press release and Video which cast BRPD in a bad light.

In the course of the lawsuit, it came to light that it was the Baton Rouge Police Department itself that first released the video – the very thing that it was trying to imprison Frampton for doing. As a result, the judge stated: “The hypocrisy of the City/Parish’s position is astounding.”

The judge ordered the City to withdraw its contempt prosecution of Frampton, and allowed Frampton’s case against the City to proceed.