Lozman had an unusual problem before the Justices: his case was too good. Every Justice who spoke seemed to acknowledge that Lozman’s rights had been violated. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, “I found the video pretty chilling. I mean, the fellow is up there for about fifteen seconds, and the next thing he knows he’s being led off in handcuffs, speaking in a very calm voice the whole time. Now, the Council may not have liked what he was talking about, but that doesn’t mean they get to cuff him and lead him out.” Still, several Justices worried that the egregious facts of Lozman’s case might lead them to create a standard that would subject many communities to similar lawsuits. They needed to figure out how to create a standard that would not discourage law enforcement from keeping order in public meetings, while preventing the kind of abuse that Lozman suffered. “I’m very concerned about police officers in difficult situations,” Justice Anthony Kennedy told Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law professor who was representing Lozman. “In this case, there’s a very serious contention that people in elected office deliberately wanted to intimidate this person, and it seems to me that maybe in this case we should cordon off or box off what happened here from the ordinary conduct of police officers."
Here's the video of the arrest:
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