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Comment by sedeki | Hacker News Reader

Is it legal to parodise in an official document (?) to the US Supreme Court like this?

Absolutely, it's a submission to state a position and in theory anyone can submit whatever position they wish for consideration.

The better question is whether it is wise, and in this particular cae I suspect it may well play to their favour - it's a rare latin nerd that fails to chuckle at a bad latin quip or three.

After all, it's not like they led with Pēdīcābo ego vōs et irrumābō from Catullus 16.

Why would such a thing be illegal? At worst the justices would ignore it.

It is illegal in many countries. Lèse-majesté is a real thing.

But not in the US.

[I believe the GP is from outside the US]

Someone somewhere in the justice department must have thought parody was not legal, otherwise, this lawsuit would have been quashed and this specific amicus brief would not be necessary. So if this specific brief was presented to those other courts that allowed this to continue, the reception might be different enough to make one thing this might just not be legal.

> this lawsuit would have been quashed

What gave you the truly outrageous idea that justice department has the capability to "quash" lawsuits such that they can't be appealed?

yeah sorry. totally meant judicial branch, not justice dept as in FBI and AG. typed fast, not enough caffeine, yadda yadda blah blah

The US Justice Department could have done diddly squat to affect the outcome of the case to date.

If you actually read the questions presented in the petition for writ of certiorari (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/238740/2022...), it's more anodyne:

> The questions presented are:

> 1. Whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity for arresting an individual based solely on speech parodying the government, so long as no case has previously held the particular speech is protected.

> 2. Whether the Court should reconsider the doctrine of qualified immunity.

So, yay, it's basically a qualified immunity case, where the infringement in question is an unhappy local government office patently violating someone's First Amendment rights. (Sadly, not the first or last time this is going to happen.)

The guy who submitted a brief in comic book form for a DOJ price fixing case [1] is doing just fine. So I'm guessing this parody would also be fine.

[1] https://www.loweringthebar.net/2012/09/all-briefs-should-now...

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