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You may think that here in America the courts will always protect the
First Amendment and your right to Free Political Speech.
You are wrong.
Courts are often antagonistic towards free speech especially when
the speakers attention, and the harsh light of public scrutiny, is directed on the misconduct of courts and judges themselves.
Then the battle becomes truly frightful.
Consider the experience of Tucson Activist Roy Warden.
On April 23, 2004 Pima County Superior Court Presiding Judge John
Leonardo declared war on the First Amendment when he ordered the
Director of Court Security, Chris Hoffman, to arrest Tucson activist Roy
Warden for handing out a newsletter, critical of court plea bargaining
policy, on the front steps of the Pima County Courthouse.
The first edition of Common Sense II exposed the no time sweetheart deal between Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall and disgraced TPD Officer Ken Walter who had been arrested on December
3, 2003 for using a police computer to solicit sexual favors from local
teenage girls, often showing up for a late night rendezvous driving a
TPD Black and White, with drugs pilfered from Walters drug arrests.
Barbara LaWall refused to prosecute Warden and on January 24, 2005
Warden, then represented by Ed Kahn, David Euchner and the ACLU,
filed suit in U.S. District Court, 4:05-cv-00020 alleging general constitutional violations. However, on March 28, 2005 Kahn, Euchner, and
the ACLU withdrew from the case on explicit instructions from Ruth
McGregor, Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, because Warden refused to stop writing articles critical of court policy.
Literally abandoned by counsel on the U.S. Courthouse steps, Warden
subsequently rolled up his sleeves, researched the F.R.Civ.P. and filed
the First Amended Complaint, naming new defendants Pima County
On March 30 2012 a Pima County jury agreed with Warden, granting him a
$112,000.00 judgment fo damages arising out of that illegal eviction.
Warden was assisted by Lee Ewing, the president of Arizonans for Immigration
Control.