Goyette v. City of Minneapolis

Background

The plaintiffs moved for a monitored injunction after the court had granted a preliminary injunction on October 28, 2021. They had reached a mediated settlement agreement with Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington, Minnesota State Patrol Colonel Matthew Langer, and Minnesota State Patrol Major Joseph Dwyer, whom the order refers to collectively as the State Defendants. The State Defendants did not oppose the motion.

The proposed injunction would last six years and would have terms substantially similar to the earlier preliminary injunction. The court said the settlement implicated important public interests, including the plaintiffs’ First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights, the public’s ability to learn about ongoing events of public importance, and public safety.

Court’s analysis

The court applied four requirements for approving an unopposed public-law injunction: procedural fairness, substantive fairness, reasonableness, and consistency with governing law.

For procedural fairness, the court relied on the parties’ representation by counsel, their participation in multiple settlement and status conferences before United States Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz, and the parties’ signatures on the settlement agreement.

For substantive fairness, the court concluded that the proposed injunction was fair because it would impose terms on the State Defendants substantially similar to those in the earlier preliminary injunction.

For reasonableness, the court found that the injunction was legally permissible, clear, proportionate, and connected to the claims in the operative complaint. The court also found that the settlement clearly identified the court’s role in overseeing compliance and the plaintiffs’ right to seek enforcement during the injunction’s six-year term. The court found no evidence of improper collusion or corruption and concluded that the injunction served the public interest.

Finally, the court found that the injunction was consistent with the legal principles and constitutional rights addressed in its earlier preliminary-injunction order.

Order

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a monitored injunction. The order enjoins the State Defendants, their agents, employees, representatives, and people acting in active concert or participation with them from certain conduct involving people whom they know or reasonably should know are journalists.

Unless there is probable cause to believe that a journalist committed a crime, the covered state personnel may not arrest, threaten to arrest, or use physical force against that journalist. They also may not use chemical agents against a journalist unless the journalist presents an imminent threat of violence, bodily harm, or property damage. They may not seize or intentionally damage a journalist’s photographic, audio-recording, or video-recording equipment or press pass, or order the journalist to stop photographing, recording, or observing a protest, unless the journalist is lawfully seized under the order.

The order includes procedures for property seized during a lawful arrest, including making a written list, seeking legal authorization to keep property needed as evidence, and promptly returning property that is not needed or whose continued seizure is not authorized. It identifies visible press credentials and distinctive press clothing as examples of evidence that someone is a journalist, while stating that those examples are not exclusive.

The order does not prevent otherwise lawful crowd-dispersal orders and does not impose liability for a journalist’s incidental exposure to crowd-control devices after remaining where those devices were used during a lawful dispersal. It also requires covered state personnel responding to civil unrest or protests involving journalists to display their agency name and badge number, maintain deployment records, and distribute copies of the order to specified personnel within 48 hours.

The order supersedes the October 28, 2021 preliminary injunction and expires on January 11, 2028. This order granted the requested injunction but did not state that the court entered a merits judgment deciding liability on the underlying claims.