Man Jokes About Mayor, Gets Subpoena Days Later

A man who joked online about a Missouri mayor says he received a "ridiculous" subpoena days later. The Washington Post reports that after a 15-year-old boy disappeared in Riverview last month, James Carroll wrote, "Someone check Riverview's mayor's basement!" on the city's Nextdoor group." He received a subpoena days later ordering him to appear at Riverview's city hall to testify on allegations including cyberbullying, slander, and inciting violence against city officials. Subpoenas are normally issued by courts, but this one was issued by the city and signed by Mayor Michael Cornell, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. "You are hereby commanded: before the mayor and board of aldermen of the city," it stated.

Carroll, who used to live in a neighboring community and now lives across the river in Collinsville, Illinois, another St. Louis suburb, says he keeps track of news in the area and made the joke to draw attention to sexual misconduct allegations against Cornell. A lawsuit that the mayor has called "malicious slander" accuses him of hiring a man from Fort Worth to work for the city, only to fire him within days after he rejected his sexual advances. Carroll says Riverview has no jurisdiction over him and the subpoena is unenforceable without a court order. "It's harassment, intimidation, all of it," he tells the Post-Dispatch. Instead of complying with the subpoena, Carroll filed a lawsuit.

Last week, the Institute for Peace civil liberties law firm sent the city a letter urging it to withdraw the subpoena, with attorney Ben Fields saying the First Amendment is a "bulwark against thin-skinned government officials abusing their authority to punish their critics," Fox 2 reports. "You can think this joke was funny or in poor taste but the important thing is anytime anybody is talking about a government official and criticizing them, would they want to be able to have subpoena served against them to show up and get berated?" Fields tells the Post. "If that is permissible, then the First Amendment is on very shaky ground." (More Missouri stories.)