Garcetti v. Ceballos

Thanks to oneworld.net, I found out about this puzzling, even distressing, Supreme Court decision. Basically, it's about the relationship between government employees and their first-amendment rights. In this case, Ceballos was an assistant District Attorney in LA. (A prosecutor). In a particular case, the defense requested that Ceballos investigate a search warrant afidavit, claiming that it was purjorious. After his investigation, Ceballos concurred and wrote a memo requesting that the case be closed. His supervisors in the prosectution, however, wished to continue with the case. Later, in a hearing about this affidavit, Ceballos testified to the truthfulness of his memo. He claims that it was in retaliaiton that he was demoted and relocated. His law suit finally surfaced, after several appeals, in the Supreme Court.

I'm writing this here, of course, because the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the prosection. For the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote: The controlling factor in this case was that Mr. Ceballos was acting purely in an official capacity when he complained internally about the search warrant. “Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part of what he was employed to do. He did not act as a citizen by writing it.” Basically, the court is claiming that if a public employee is hired by government to do something and they protest or impede the execution of said duties, they are not protected from disciplinary action by the government. The ruling is designed to help the government run more efficiently. I'm assuming that, in this case, Ceballos is not protected because, as a prosecutor, his job is to prosecute and not keep cases from court. The Court admits that government employees should be able to speak out...but only in the public sphere as "public citizens." This is based on precedent: another Supreme Court case, Pickering v. Board of Education, ruled that government employees can speak out when it can be proven that they speak for the public benefit as public citizens and when their speech does not significantly impair the functioning of the government.

So should Ceballos have taken his grievances to 60 Minutes? It isn't realistic that everything be resolved in the public sphere. And if public employees, who arguably have the most expertise at their jobs, can not criticize the government, who will? This ruling is absurd. I puzzled over the Court's official briefing for over an hour and I still don't understand how they can seperate an employee from a citizen, stating that "citizens" enjoy 1st amendment protection while employees don't. What? I thought we were always citizens and always protected by the 1st Amendment.

It's important to note that this case was debated while Justice O'Connor was still on the Court. She resigned, however, and left the Court with a tie. Justice Alito broke the tie on this one...

The courts official slip opinion is here:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/04-473.pdf

Read civilrights.org assessment here:
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/nominations/details.cfm?id=44005