Talk:Heffernan v. City of Paterson

DYK Hook, GA nom, looking towards FA
You both seem to have put a lot of work into this article too, so I'm looking for your input. We have a day or two more to submit a WP:DYK nomination, and if either of you have any ideas for a hook, I'd love to hear them. I could do the cliche "Supreme Court ruled in Heffernan that..." but if you think there are more interesting facts of the case, let me know. I will probably nominate this for Good Article status in the coming days as well. Finally, I think that, with both of your additions, this article is well on its way to FA status. We should look into what improvements should be made before then and work to get the article in line with all the various MOS pages. You both really have done a great job, and I hope we can all get our work recognized. Wugapodes (talk) 17:21, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * If you do nominate this for GA, I would be happy to review it. I should note, however, that it will be important to include a section about analysis and commentary, and you will ultimately want to use a consistent citation style. I strongly encourage you to utilize Bluebook style. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No worries; I haven't written about a SCOTUS decision in a while but in the past I have written bunches; I picked up on this one because I wrote about a bunch of other ones in this area (Connick v. Meyers, Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle and Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, among others). I went back because this was the first case in this line to have to consider the Waters v. Churchill'' precedent of how to handle a factual dispute about the nature of the speech. I have plenty of experience with Bluebook citations.
 * As for a DYK hook (another area where I have plenty of experience), I would consider:
 * ... that the U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Heffernan v. City of Paterson that a public employer violates the First Amendment even when it mistakenly disciplines an employee for political activity?
 * ... that when Paterson, New Jersey, police detective Kevin Heffernan picked up a campaign sign for his sick mother in 2005, it started a dispute that was resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court only this year?
 * ... that three different U.S. federal district judges heard Heffernan v. City of Paterson, recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court?
 * As for analysis and commentary, it would probably be a fairly thin section for now as the sort of in-depth analysis and commentary will not come until people write law review articles on the case. So for now we'll probably have to rely on hot reads from legal pundits (which, granted, is easier to research and cite). Daniel Case (talk) 21:22, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I really like your suggestions for DYK hooks. I also agree that at this point there won't be much in terms of scholarly analysis, but there is plenty of early commentary that will be important to include (I think it is an important component of the breadth requirement for the Good Article Criteria). See, for example, this article in The Economist, this analysis from SCOTUSblog, and this commentary from the National Law Review. Also, The New Yorker had some interesting commentary about the case, but it was published back in January. Let me know if I can be of help finding sources, and I look forward to reading this article again when it is nominated for GA status! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 01:16, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Forgot to mention that I liked the hooks so much I nominated them! And one's headed for the main page in a few days so congrats on that. I added some commentary that Notecardforfree linked. I did not use the SCOTUSblog or National Law Review articles since they really seemed more like recaps of the case rather than commentary. If anyone thinks they can integrate them in though, feel free! I also added in this National Constitution Center blog post which has some interesting commentary. I'm pretty sure it falls under WP:NEWSBLOG but what are your opinions on the reliability of the source?
 * Looking forward: Has anyone found any negative commentary or opinions that could be added? This Breitbart article has a dissenting tinge from its discussion of the dissents but never outright says anything critical of the decision. Also, I think the opinion coverage is sufficient for GA but looking at it again in light of some of these commentaries, I think it will need to be expanded before FA. I'm going to try and learn Bluebook to make these citations consistent (I used cite web since there's no template to cite websites in bluebook style), but if anyone here knows it better and want to be bold I won't complain. Wugapodes (talk) 06:06, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Rivera
"Heffernan sued the city, Rivera, and his superior officers ..." Who is Rivera? This is the only time that name comes up in this article. Concrete Cloverleaf (talk) 02:37, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure; there are no named defendant's with the name "Rivera," as far as I can tell. Perhaps the authors meant Jose "Joey" Torres, who is the City's manager? -- Notecardforfree (talk) 02:47, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find the name in the district decision, so I removed it and changed it to "the mayor". It might be in the complaint, but I don't think so since the name doesn't appear in any of the decisions. Wugapodes (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Additional comments about article from Notecardfrofree
Earlier this week, I was asked to provide additional comments about this article. In general, I think the article is very well written and in good shape, but I have offered some suggestions for how the article can be improved in anticipation of a potential FA nomination:

Lead

 * The article says: "the Court held that a public employee's constitutional rights are violated when an employer disciplines them ...." I would consider changing this to say that their rights "can be violated," or perhaps re-phrase this part of the lead to more narrowly state that this was the holding in this case, because the Court's opinion notes that this is not a categorical rule (see, e.g., slip. op. at 3).
 * The article says: "Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority that the department's belief was all that mattered ...." I would begin this paragraph with a sentence that summarizes the ultimate result of the case (i.e. In an majority opinion written by Justice Breyer, the United States Supreme Court held that Heffernan was deprived of a constitutional right, even though the City acted upon a mistaken belief).

Background

 * For the purposes of the "comprehensiveness" requirement (see WP:FACR), I would suggest adding a few paragraphs in the background section that explain (1) how the First Amendment protects the freedom to support political candidates, (2) SCOTUS cases that discuss the application of this right when public employees are disciplined by their employers (Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976), and its progeny), and (3) you may also want to consider adding a brief explanation of section 1983 suits (and how they allow citizens to recover damages for constitutional violations).
 * Thanks so much for adding this material to the article; I think it certainly helps readers understand the legal issues at stake in this case. However, I would recommend expanding this section a bit. Because it is so central to Justice Breyer's analysis, I would recommend including a brief summary of the facts and holding of Waters v. Churchill, 511 U. S. 661 (1994) and some of the other cases that are discussed by Justice Breyer and Justice Thomas. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 15:44, 29 May 2016 (UTC)


 * If you do expand the background section further, I would recommend that you further subdivide it into a "legal background" section that provides information about the First Amendment issues involved in the case (see above) and a "procedural history" section that discusses the case's epic journey through the lower courts.
 * The petition for cert, the brief in opposition to the cert petition, and the merits briefs contain some interesting factual allegations that you may want to weave into the description of the facts of the case. For example, in the petition for cert at p. 4, Heffernan claims that "Arsenio Sanchez, a Paterson police officer assigned to Mayor Torres’s security staff, happened to be driving by and saw Heffernan speaking with Goow and holding the sign" at the distribution center (the implication, of course, was that this was no mere coincidence).

Opinion of the Court

 * I will take a closer look at this section over the next few days and I will post comments soon.
 * Overall, you have done an excellent job to expand this section. Here are a few, relatively minor suggestions for improving this section:
 * The article says: "... the actions were still that of a government official which were supported by unconstitutional reasoning." Can you find a different phrase than "unconstitutional reasoning?" Perhaps you can say something like "the City's actions still constituted an unconstitutional intrusion upon fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment?"
 * The article says: "... "the harm is still the same regardless of the factual basis of the employer's reasoning." The phrase "the harm is still the same" seems a bit vague; perhaps you can say something like "even if a public employer acts upon mistaken beliefs, those actions still prevent the employee from engaging in activities that are protected under the First Amendment." You can probably achieve the same result by consolidating this sentence with the very next sentence in the same paragraph.
 * In the section about Justice Thomas' dissent, you write "42 U.S.C. § 1983" in the text of the article. I don't think WIkipedia's manual of style says anything about this, but the Bluebook discourages the use of the section symbol in the text of articles (it should generally only be used in footnotes and citations; cf. the practice of the Yale Law Journal). Instead, the Bluebook recommends using the word "section" in place of the section symbol. In this case, however, I would recommend keeping "42 U.S.C. § 1983" as-is because I think it is clearer to readers than "Section 1983 of Title 42 of the United States Code" (and the Supreme Courts wrote "42 U.S.C. § 1983" in their slip opinion).
 * The article says: "Because of this, the dissent argues that Heffernan cannot succeed as Section 1983 provides a cause of action only for those whose rights have been violated, and Heffernan's rights were not violated." I would divide this into two separate sentences. First, say that Justice Thomas explained that relief under Section 1983 is only available when the government deprives citizens of constitutional rights. Second, say that Justice Thomas argued there was no deprivation of a constitutional right (and explain why there was no deprivation).
 * You should also include a summary of part II-B of Justice Thomas' dissent, where he explains that "Heffernan’s injury must result from activities within the zone of interests that §1983 protects."
 * Again, you have done excellent work with this article! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 15:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Please let me know if any of the above comments are unclear or if you have any additional questions. Thanks again for your fantastic work to improve this article! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:56, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * One more minor comment: you should make sure that the dates are formatted consistently in the references section (see this list of Bluebook month abbreviations). Also, to make things consistent, you should place a period at the end of every footnote. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 15:47, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for giving such thorough suggestions! I think I've addressed all of them, and will be nominating it at FAC soon. Hopefully you will leave further suggestions there! Wugapodes [thɔk] [kantʃɻɪbz] 17:55, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You have really done some great work with this. I look forward to seeing the FA nomination! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:20, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

TFAR
Today's featured article/requests/Heffernan v. City of Paterson --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:53, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Short-form references in this article.
Firstly, thank you for this article which I read with great interest. I think it explains rather well what is inherently a complicated legal situation. However, I found difficulty looking up the primary sources and I guess that this is a problem with the general style guidelines for legal articles. I have therefore raised the matter at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Legal Thincat (talk) 12:54, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

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