11th Update from Glen Allen re Allen v. SPLC Litigation

Friends, Donors, and Interested Persons,

Still no word from Judge Blake in my case.  If this goes on much longer, I may file a pleading to try to trigger a decision, although that is a problematic step.

You may recall that in my last update on September 6 I reviewed the status of several recent cases brought against the SPLC.  Since that update, there’s been a decision in the Center for Immigration Studies case in federal court in the District of Columbia — an unfavorable decision, as Judge Jackson granted the SPLC’s motion to dismiss.  My claims differ in important respects from the claims CIS alleged in its case, so I am not dismayed or particularly surprised by the decision.

There has also been a decision in the James Kennedy Ministries v. SPLC and Amazon case in the federal court in Alabama, a case I’ve been following but didn’t mention in my last update.  Here too, after 12 months, Judge Thompson granted the SPLC’s and Amazon’s motion to dismiss.  The opinion is 141 pages, which may partly explain why it took so long to issue.  Here again, the plaintiff’s claims differ from mine in important respects and I am not surprised by the decision

But when I say I’m not surprised by the CIS and James Kennedy Ministries decisions, I don’t mean I approve of them. To the contrary, I commend the plaintiffs for fighting back against the SPLC’s odious hard-left censorship tactics.  The courts in those cases, so focused on the niceties of legal doctrines and so insensitive to the real world consequences of the SPLC’s malicious conduct, lost sight of the forest for the trees in granting the motions to dismiss.  Some day, some court will have the vision and courage to put the SPLC in its place.

I’d like you to know I’ve not been idle in the cause of free expression as we’ve awaited a decision.  For example, on October 8, 2019, on behalf of the Free Expression Foundation, Inc. I and a colleague filed an amicus curiae (Friend of the Court) brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the constitutionality of the Anti-Riot Act under which three young members of the Rise Above Movement had been sentenced to several years in prison for their involvement in the scuffles that arose at the Charlottesville rallies in August 2017.  (The RAM defendants had nothing to do with James Fields’ driving of his car into the crowd at Charlottesville).  I have attached my amicus brief below.  The Anti-Riot Act, which the government had rarely used in 50 years, is flagrantly unconstitutional in that it gives the government prosecutors unbridled discretion to pick and choose on political grounds among participants in tumultuous demonstrations — as happened in Charlottesville and elsewhere, where no Antifa have ever been prosecuted even though so many of them have committed violent acts.  I and my colleague also filed an amicus brief in a separate prosecution of RAM members in California.   In that case Judge Carney, agreeing that the Anti-Riot Act is unconstitutional, struck it down.  Judge Carney’s opinion is also attached below.  These are important developments for the cause of free expression, but the mainstream media, predictably, has ignored them.

As always, I am grateful for your past moral and financial support and respectfully ask for your continued support.   Here is my website for donation purposes:  https://breathing-space-for-dissent.com/

My best to you all!

Glen