With the United States Supreme Court recessing for summer at the end of this week, a Port Huron official and a man he blocked from his Facebook page will have to wait a little while longer for their day in court.
Though it did not make the past session’s docket due to ongoing filing, the case between Port Huron City Manager James Freed and citizen Kevin Lindke has been ongoing since April 2020, when Lindke sued Freed for violating his First Amendment rights by deleting his comments and blocking Lindke’s three profiles from accessing the city manager’s page.
Lindke, who runs Through My Eyes, a social media page recently turned show for Blue Water Healthy Living, had been voicing his opposition to Freed’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Freed had been posting about on his public official page, having changed it from a normal profile to allow Port Huron constituents to more easily follow him on the platform.
While both the U.S. District Court and the Sixth Circuit’s Court of Appeals ruled that Freed did not violate the First Amendment, Lindke continued to appeal the decision, eventually petitioning Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who also serves as Circuit Justice for the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court, for a review of the decision.
With several extensions filed throughout the process, the Supreme Court finally decided to take up the case for the October 2023 docket in late April. Lindke and his attorneys filed their brief on the case’s merits last Friday, June 23. Freed and his attorneys have until August 8 to file their own brief.
Lindke is also currently facing three charges including assault and battery for an altercation at the St. Clair County Commissioner meeting on June 1, though he alleges that he was actually the one assaulted during the incident with Rob Drewek, an Eddy Center developer attending and speaking at the meeting.
