Advocates in Conversation

Anya Bidwell on retaliatory arrest

In this video, Nate Mowry interviews Anya Bidwell from the Institute for Justice. Anya represents Sylvia Gonzalez, who was arrested for taking a petition that she herself had brought before the city government as an elected official. A federal appeals court ruled that Gonzalez’s lawsuit against city officials, alleging that she had been arrested in retaliation for her criticism of the city’s manager, could not go forward because she could not provide evidence that someone who had done the same thing as her but had not criticized the government had not been arrested. The Supreme Court will hear Gonzalez’s case on Wednesday.