The Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School signed on to an amicus brief in Netflix v. Babin, a case pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Clinic joined the Southern Methodist University First Amendment Clinic and First Amendment scholars, with support from Vinson & Elkins LLP, to advocate in support of Netflix’s First Amendment rights.
The appeal related to a prosecutor’s attempts to press criminal charges and retaliate against Netflix’s exercise of its First Amendment rights, in distributing the film “Cuties” and petitioning the government for redress.
The brief addresses the importance of federal court jurisdiction to protect against bad-faith state prosecutions under an exception to a legal doctrine known as Younger abstention, which governs the boundaries between federal and state court jurisdiction. Additionally, the brief addresses core tenets of the First Amendment, including how retaliation claims should be assessed, and how an adverse decision may impact other content distributors will suffer if the Fifth Circuit denies federal jurisdiction.
