White Hat v. Murrill

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected constitutional challenges to Louisiana’s Infrastructure Trespass Statute, which criminalizes “unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure.” The definition of “critical infrastructure” was amended in 2018 to include pipelines. The plaintiffs challenging the statute included individuals arrested in connection with protests of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (“Arrested Plaintiffs”), “Landowner Plaintiffs” who opposed the pipeline and who allowed the protestors on their property, and individual and organizational “Advocacy Plaintiffs” who previously organized pipeline protests. The Fifth Circuit first affirmed the dismissal of the Louisiana Attorney General from the suit on sovereign immunity grounds and also affirmed the dismissal on standing grounds of the Advocacy Plaintiffs and Landowner Plaintiffs. In addition, the Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court’s determination that the Arrested Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge to the Infrastructure Trespass Statute was moot because the statute of limitations for charges associated with the 2018 protests had expired. On the merits, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s rejection of the plaintiffs’ claims that the Infrastructure Trespass Statute was unconstitutionally vague or that it constituted an impermissible content-based restriction or was overbroad under the First Amendment. One judge dissented from the majority’s conclusion that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague.