Rodríguez-Cotto v. González-Colón, decided Tuesday by First Circuit Judges Gustavo Gelpí and Seth Aframe and Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton, struck down a Puerto Rico law (Article 5.14(a)) that makes it a crime "to purposefully, knowingly, or recklessly," "during a governor-declared state emergency or disaster,"
[g]ive[ ] a warning or false alarm, knowing that the information is false, in relation to the imminent occurrence of a catastrophe in Puerto Rico, or disseminate[ ], publish[ ], transmit[ ], transfer[ ] or circulate[ ] through any means of communication, including the media, social networks, or any other means of dissemination, publication or distribution of information, a notice or a false alarm, knowing that the information is false, when as a result of its conduct it puts the life, health, bodily integrity or safety of one or more persons at imminent risk, or endangers public or private property ….
The court concluded that the law was content-based, and didn't fit within existing First Amendment exceptions (such as the defamation exception). It also concluded that the law wouldn't fit within any special latitude provided by the Justice Breyer's two-Justice concurrence in U.S. v. Alvarez (2012), which provided the necessary votes to support the conclusion in that case:
