Connick, District Attorney in and for the Parish of Orleans, Louisiana v. Myers (461 U.S. 138)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 20, 1983 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 461 U.S. 138 · 103 S. Ct. 1684
- Decided
- April 20, 1983
- Term
- October Term 1982
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. In Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563 (1968), we stated that a public employee does not relinquish First Amendment rights to comment on matters of public interest by virtue of government employment. We also recognized that the State’s interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees “differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.” Id., at 568. The problem, we thought, was arriving “at a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Ibid. We return to this problem today and consider whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments prevent the discharge of a state employee for circulating a questionnaire concerning internal office affairs. I The respondent, Sheila Myers, was employed as an Assistant District Attorney in New Orleans for five and a half years. She served at the pleasure of petitioner Harry Connick, the District Attorney for Orleans Parish. During this period Myers competently performed her responsibilities of trying criminal cases. In the early part of October 1980, Myers was informed that she would be transferred to prosecute…
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