In an exclusive interview with The Dallas Express, YouTube personality and political analyst Alex Stein discussed the outcome of his recent case against Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
The case stems from an appearance Stein made in May 2022. Stein was ejected from a commissioners’ court meeting after attempting to read aloud an unflattering article about County Judge Clay Jenkins, originally published by D Magazine. Stein read directly from the article, which accused Jenkins of ‘panty-skimming’ female students at Baylor University during his college years.
Despite a legal defense centered around basic First Amendment rights, a jury of seven women and one man sided with the county against Stein’s right to criticize the judge publicly, ruling on March 12 that his removal did not violate his free speech rights regardless of a potential procedural violation.
Stein claims that his First Amendment rights were infringed upon when officials removed him from the public meeting without a proper vote. After he started reading the 2014 article which detailed Jenkins’ arrest during his college years for criminal trespassing, specifically in connection with an incident in a women’s dormitory at Baylor University, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price quickly interrupted, declaring Stein’s comments to be an ‘attack’ on a sitting official.
Within moments, county marshals escorted him out of the meeting, even though the commissioners did not follow the established procedure to vote on the matter.
“When we took it to the judge, originally, we wanted it to be a procedural violation, but what they said is, a procedure violation is not a violation of my First Amendment rights. That’s actually a state violation, and that is not protected. If they make a violation of their meeting rules, that’s not a violation of the First Amendment. So that didn’t even get to be part of our argument,” Stein told DX.
Influenced by the defense team’s concept of “qualified immunity” for public officials and procedural guidelines designed to maintain decorum at public meetings, the jury ruled in favor of the county. The jury determined that the county had the right to enforce its rules against “personal attacks.”
Stein argued that the jury did not fully grasp the basic rights of the First Amendment and the importance of the procedural violations, which he said hindered their ability to make a proper decision in the case.
“This is the other problem, and I knew this going in, my attorneys made this clear: these county judges and elected officials have what is called qualified immunity, which is, if they make a mistake and they do break the law, unless they made that mistake ‘intentionally,’ knowing they were going to break the law, they’re legally protected,” Stein said.
He has already announced plans to appeal the verdict, citing potential bias within the jury and the Streisand effect—the idea that an attempt to suppress information, in this case, Jenkins’ history, only draws more attention to it.
“It’s already had the Streisand effect. So we’ll see how much more this instance gets out. But this fight is not over; I’m happy this actually happened. I wish the outcome would have been different, but I’m happy that I actually found attorneys that would go the distance, and we’re not done fighting because my attorney fully believes this is such an egregious limit of my speech,” Stein continued.
While Jenkins argued that his past arrest at Baylor has no relevance to his current duties as a judge, Stein’s legal team contended that any aspect of a politician’s past is fair game for public discussion, especially concerning their qualifications to sit for a tax-funded position.
As for Alex Stein, the ruling has not deterred his drive or the success of his show Prime Time with Alex Stein. It has not even deterred his fight against this specific case.
“We are filing an appeal, so it’s not over. We’re not done,” Stein added.