SHAUN PORTER SCORES MAJOR FIRST AMENDMENT LEGAL VICTORY!

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:03]All right, guys. What's happening? Levi Trumble here along with Shawn Porter. We are in Washington D.C. at the Roosevelt Memorial. Guys, I know how much everyone loves a good update video, and this is the ultimate update video. We have unbelievable breaking news, and it was so incredible that we came just to Washington D.C. just to break this news.

[00:00:27]As you may remember, we haven't talked about it in a little while, but Washington County, Maryland Commissioner President John Barr filed a $10 million free speech lawsuit against First Amendment activist Shawn Porter. And you will remember that it was essentially a reproduction of the Hustler versus Falwell First Amendment landmark case. It was a 9-0 decision in favor of free speech, where the televangelist Falwell sued Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, defamation as it related to this parody ad that Mr. Flynt published in his Hustler magazine. Well, Mr. Porter, he in spirit of that case made a very similar reproduction style advertisement sign, and he was utilizing it at government meetings. And what did Commissioner President John Barr do? Well, if you saw our last video on this subject, he essentially filed a carbon copy lawsuit of a case that went to the United States Supreme Court and totally lost outright 9-0 decision in favor of the First Amendment. And what it found essentially was that individuals who are essentially expressing parody, humor, satire, that it's First Amendment protected free speech. It was sort of one of the original decisions that got us there.

[00:01:56]Snyder versus Phelps, affirmed that. But in any event, the breaking news is that after a three-day jury trial, Shawn Porter has been absolutely vindicated. And we'll get into it just a little bit. I want to give a little bit of testimony of what I witnessed. So, obviously, the trial started on day one. Mr. Porter and Sarah Sptalanic and John Barr and all of them, they had to appear for jury selection, voir dire. They had to get a jury picked out. There was 300-plus people all packed inside of a master courtroom. It was basically like standing room only.

[00:02:29]And I watched for hours on end as a jury had to be selected. That was a very meticulous process. Mr. Porter handled himself very well throughout that process. Ultimately, hours later, they were able to come back and return with a nine-person juror, six jurors and three alternates, and they were seated, and day one proceeded to opening statements.

[00:02:50]Uh it was around noon time. Uh jury selection took all morning, but they did get to opening and their first two witnesses on the first day of this jury trial. And it was unbelievable. Uh the opening statement given by Ms. Sptalanic, not great, nothing spectacular, didn't really give a great framework of what the case uh was going to establish. Uh but Mr. Porter, on the other hand, sort of got got up there, beat him over the head, said this was a free speech issue, and that, you know, basically, you're all seated here today.

[00:03:18]300 people had to come to court. You know, we had to convene court staff and court reporters over the fact that John Barr got his feelings hurt. That's a direct quote from him. And so, it was powerful. But then we started to witness um witnesses being called to the stand, examined and cross-examined. And let me just tell you, one witness after another, whether it was Zachary Keefer, the county attorney for Washington County, or whether it was Michelle Gordon, the county administrator, you just started to see, over a two-day period of calling witnesses, witness after witness be absolutely punished by Mr. Porter on cross-examination. The jury was absolutely entertained by this and as somebody who was sitting there watching all of this unfold, I was able to witness the jurors, their reaction. They seemed to be very uh disfavorable of the plaintiff's case from almost moment one.

[00:04:09]So, 2 days go by of absolute punishment by Mr. Porter. The case is going well in his favor, but ultimately you get to the third day of the jury trial and it's 9:30 a.m. The jury comes out and we're all sitting there and Sara Spetalnick is not there. We're waiting for John Bar's attorney, Sara Spetalnick again, done videos about her before.

[00:04:32]We're waiting for her to show up and she's not there for whatever reason. So, ultimately what happens is the judge comes out and he makes this unbelievable announcement that Sara Spetalnick, his attorney, the plaintiff's attorney, and again, this is during the middle of a jury trial, he comes out and says that she has had some sort of a medical episode and that she will not be appearing and that the case is now a mistrial.

[00:05:01]So, the case ended in a mistrial in favor of Porter, obviously. And with that, all of the work that plaintiff and plaintiff's counsel did to bring this ridiculous case came absolutely crashing down and it was all for nothing. A lot of people's time were wasted, but what actually happened here, if you're reading between the lines, is you know, she claims that she had a medical episode. And again, I'm not in a position to say whether that's true or whether that's false.

[00:05:30]>> I am. We'll get to that maybe in a second. But what I'm saying is is that it was an unbelievable development to see all of this happen, to see someone take that level of punishment for 2 days by an unrepresented party in a $10 million lawsuit and to just watch this thing unfold, watch the jurors be displeased by the case, and then at the third day, when she seemingly realized that the cat was out of the bag, and that she could no longer hide the ridiculousness of this case, she seemingly, by way of saying she had a medical episode and didn't appear, this was like her out. It was her way to withdraw from this, and she, I guess, figured that a mistrial would be better than just a flat-out loss. It's It was frivolous. And in the first video that we brought to you about this subject matter, we told you how absolutely egregious this case was. We told you that it would end with a favorable outcome for Mr. Porter. We were right. I think we're always right. So, with that breaking development and that timeline unfolded, I now want to turn to Shawn Porter.

[00:06:37]This is unbelievable. You had a unbelievable situation, lawsuit, victory.

[00:06:44]How did you keep your composure throughout this lawsuit? And what do you just like make of this whole thing to like where this whole thing started to where it is now? Well, essentially, I got sued for my free speech cuz I hurt John Barr's feelings, and he he offered to settle it immediately if I just stopped talking about him at public meetings, and I'm not giving up my right to free speech because he was threatening me with this $10 million lawsuit. So, we litigated it for over a year. It was a total joke. The judge was totally in the tank for giving John Barr at least his day in court. Everything got thrown out except intentional infliction of emotional distress cuz John Barr's lawyer lied and said that there were other acts and conduct that were not legal or protected by the First Amendment that somehow caused John Barr's damages. At trial, that was proven false. He just kept talking about being offended by the political sign, being offended by my political free speech, and being offended by my political protest on public property during business hours, lawfully and peacefully. And what ended up happening was everybody was just appalled at the case. I had a juror call me immediately afterwards and tell me they were 100% against John Barr.

[00:07:48]I believe that every single witness committed perjury on the stand. As you saw at trial, they would testify to something and then on cross-examination, I would get them to admit that that was in fact false. It was an absolute bloodbath. It was a total sham trial because a mistrial is better than a loss and then they don't have to bring the case again. They can just let it die on the books and I am then denied my right to appeal that one liability determination without damages of IIED because without a final judgment, I don't get to appeal that one particular BS decision.

[00:08:20]Although he articulated zero damages, he had no receipts. He's claiming psychological distress like severe and he he didn't even see a psychiatrist, take a Xanax. He had no proof anything actually happened other than hurt feelings. It was a disgrace. And yeah, and I will say prior to this trial actually starting like he said, the defamation count was thrown out, the the invasion of privacy count was thrown out and you're essentially just left with the IIED which is essentially the hardest claim to bring in the state of Maryland considering the fact you you on top of it, he's a politician and this is conduct that happened at government meetings and he was claiming, "Oh, well, you know, it caused me to be constipated and dehydrated and >> Yeah.

[00:09:07]>> He said the sign made him constipated and dehydrated. I got him to actually say that on the stand. It was it was ridiculous. Everyone was shaking their heads like how did a sign make you not poop and be thirsty? I mean, I don't even I don't even get it. This whole thing was just a joke.

[00:09:20]>> It was absolutely ridiculous and I want to I want to hone in on that a bit.

[00:09:26]He had no damages.

[00:09:27]He couldn't point to $1 or one red cent in economic fiscal harm from this event and you're asking a jury to award you $10 for what? You called it hurt feelings and the jury seemed to be very receptive to it being just that. Well, first off, um intentional infliction of emotional distress cannot be claimed based on First Amendment protected activity ever and so they lied to say that there was some other activity they were going to prove at trial that was in fact uh illegal and they lied in these fake affidavits that were in the wrong oath.

[00:09:58]It was under general information and belief which means no firsthand knowledge and that's totally illegal and the judge ruled on these illegal um affidavits. They were even called declarations instead of affidavits and it it it it's it showed me in a false light and then when those exact same witnesses took the stand, they abandoned everything they said in those sham affidavits.

[00:10:19]Basically, the whole thing was a fraud and now we go to criminal prosecution of John Barr and those witnesses who lied.

[00:10:25]They made ridiculous statements like John Barr said the sheriff uh hired 13 additional deputies because of my free speech at public meetings. Well, I have it in writing from the sheriff that that never occurred and he's going to be a witness. Was there ever a moment when you were just like, you know, like this could go this could not go my way and like my whole life is on the line here?

[00:10:45]No.

[00:10:46]You never cared? No, I didn't give a [ __ ] Really?

[00:10:49]I mean, I was I was I was I was inconvenienced. I had to file some paperwork. It was really stupid. Um you know, I made some copies at like, you know, Staples um for like exhibits and stuff and then I ended up not even needing them. I think I I I I got a little bit of a paper cut um during the whole proceedings, but I ended up not even putting on a defense because I didn't have to cuz there was nothing actually There was no evidence. I excused all of my witnesses. It was an absolute joke.

[00:11:14]>> I tell you we are working on getting the audio right now and when we do, we will certainly bring the audience bits and pieces of that. This was a trial unlike anything you've ever seen before. It was so ridiculous and honestly, a lot of it has to fall back on the judge in this case, Judge Speakas. He should have shut this down. He should have never let this trial get this far, but what he allowed to happen here was let a outrageous attorney put on an outrageous case and then receive an outrageous result and then outrageously make a claim that she is sick or whatever and she can't come to court and now has to declare a mistrial. So, the breaking news is the trial ends in a mistrial. The case was so bad if her plaintiff and plaintiff's counsel that they put their tail between their legs and ran. No surprise there.

[00:12:03]The case was egregious.

[00:12:05]And um and we told you it would be.