I SLAPPED a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Cry

Old-timey country lawyer Marc Randazza comments on... let's call it "unfortunate" Nevada Senate Bill 444, designed to overturn much of the anti-SLAPP law passed in 2013.

Here's Mr. Randazza in his own words:



Here's the opposition:



I don't know about any of you, my cherished readers, but I'm still enough of a red-blooded American to get all a-tizzy when I listen to appeals to English common law jurisprudence. I'm still enough of an Aristotelian to get a bit misty over the fundamental precepts of proportionality in justice. I'm still just barely enough of a Burkean, a Humean, a Buchananite to find petty dominion, bullying, discrimination under the law, and a wanton, reckless disregard for the philosophical underpinnings that brought us both substantive and procedural due process offensive that I can't help but cheer for M-Razz and jeer at the uncivilized bullies in suits seeking to return to the Silver State the ability for malicious goons to expropriate the wheels of justice for censorious intent.

But that's just me. I'm one dude. There are probably a few other like me, but judging by the primary research I've done with public survey data, we are few, and we are far between. The proxy variable I use for robust public 1A support shows a lower than 25% support rate for freedom of expression.

A government constituted for the people and by the people cannot indefinitely bear the full weight of public opinion. I commend any and all involved in the efforts that got the '13 law passed. But frankly, I find it surprising that it ever got through, and I'd find it more surprising if it weathered this assault or others like it. Critical speech just doesn't feel euvoluntary when you're the one being criticized. And over the long arc of civilization, such tender sentiments will slowly puree the hard facts demanded by the machinery of justice.

Spit on hands, hoist the black flag, and hie thee to a-watering the tree of liberty, ye slubberdegullions, lest Enlightenment principles of jurisprudence vanish from the earth anon.