Tennessee Attorney Sues Federal Court Over Gag Order in CoreCivic Suit
In a suit filed on September 30, 2024, attorney Daniel Horwitz accused four judges in the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee of violating his First Amendment rights with a gag order that was issued in a case he was litigating against private prison giant CoreCivic. As PLN reported, the Court’s July 2022 order silenced Horwitz’s criticism of the company and even required him to delete related tweets from his social media account on Twitter, now known as X. [See: PLN, Feb. 2023, p.42.]
CoreCivic settled that case, along with four others Horwitz had pending against the firm, leading the judges in each to dismiss his appeal to the gag order as moot. That left only a lawsuit to continue his challenge to the Court’s local rule, under which the order was issued. “Mr. Horwitz needs to know the extent to which Rule 83.04 restricts his speech about his litigation in the Middle District because he continues to litigate in this Court, and he continues to do so against CoreCivic—a party that has already invoked Rule 83.04 to silence Mr. Horwitz’s speech and has demonstrated that it will do so again each time Mr. Horwitz asserts his right to speak,” his lawsuit declared.
Relying on the same audits and reports that Horwitz cited in his now-deleted tweets, the federal Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation in August 2024 into conditions at CoreCivic’s Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, one of four lockups that the firm operates under contract from the state Department of Corrections. Because Horwitz has successfully sued the CoreCivic so many times, he received many requests for interviews—which the gag order compelled him to decline, he said.
His case remains pending, and PLN will update developments as they are available. Horwitz is represented by attorneys Jared McClain and Benjamin A. Field of Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia, and Braden H. Boucek of Southeastern Legal Foundation in Roswell, Georgia. See: Horwitz v. Campbell, USDC (M.D. Tenn.), Case No. 3:24-cv-01180.
Additional source: Reason