Stephen King, James Patterson show support for plaintiffs in library lawsuit

Bestselling authors Stephen King and James Patterson joined supporters of the plaintiffs in the Llano County Library System lawsuit Tuesday, Sept. 10, as attorneys on both sides in the two-year-long dispute over banned books prepare to give oral arguments before the entire U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

That hearing is set for 9 a.m. Sept. 24 in New Orleans. On June 6, a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs. An unnamed appeals court judge then requested an en banc, or full court, hearing.

The case came to the appeals court from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin after Judge Robert Pitman granted a temporary injunction at the plaintiffs’ request. He ordered Llano County to replace 17 books previously removed from circulation. The defendants appealed that decision to the Fifth Circuit.  

King and Patterson were included in two of a flurry of amicus curiae, or “friends of the court,” briefs filed from Sept. 9-11 with the appeals court on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Leila Green Little et al. v. Llano County et al. civil lawsuit. The plaintiffs filed the suit in April 2022, charging that elected and appointed officials wrongfully removed 17 books from circulation, violating First and 14th amendment rights. 

The defendants in the case are Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham; county commissioners Peter Jones, Linda Raschke, Mike Sandoval, and Jerry Don Moss; library system Director Amber Milum; and Library Advisory Board members Gay Baskin, Bonnie Wallace, Rochelle Wells, and Rhonda Schneider. 

The plaintiffs are Llano County residents and library system users Leila Green Little, Jeanne Puryear, Kathy Kennedy, Rebecca Jones, Richard Day, Cynthia Waring, and Diane Moster. 

King and Patterson are included in a brief filed on behalf of the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, Candlewick Press, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, MacMillan Publishing Group, Penguin Random House, Scholastic Inc., Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks. 

Others filing amicus curiae briefs are the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas; the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and the Texas Freedom to Read Project.

Amicus curiae briefs are filed by persons or entities who are not party to the action but have a strong interest in the outcome of a case.

King’s name first came up in the case through no effort of his own. He was mentioned in both the dissent and majority opinion of the 2-1 ruling on June 6. 

In writing his dissent, appeals court Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan quoted the author in his final statement.

“Stephen King saw this coming,” Duncan wrote. “One of his scary stories once warned: ‘Avoid the library police!’ Now, thanks to the majority, we are all the Library Police. I dissent.”

Judge Jacques Wiener included a King quote in his majority opinion.

“Per King,” he wrote, “‘As a nation, we’ve been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn’t approve of them.’ Defendants and their highlighters are the true library police.” 

The attorneys who wrote the amicus brief, Marc A. Fuller and Maggie I. Burreson of Jackson Walker LLP in Dallas, wrote that King wanted to set the record straight on the issue of book banning. 

“In his view, those who would remove books from public libraries because they disagree with the ideas they contain are the real Library Police,” reads part of the Statement of Interest in the 39-page brief.

The brief also noted that James Patterson is the son of a librarian and a strong proponent of libraries and the right to read and opposes banning books. Patterson is the author of the “Maximum Ride” books, a bestselling series for children and teens that has been targeted in other book bans.

In July, the attorneys general of 17 states filed an amicus brief supporting the defendants. The brief was submitted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Florida AG Ashley Moody. Other states involved are Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia. 

“(The case) raises issues of exceptional importance concerning the First Amendment’s application to library-curation decisions … (that will) leave every public librarian in a state of confusion over whether or when they can be sued for weeding a book,” reads the brief.

The three-judge panel took more than a year to reach its split decision. The U.S. District Court case is on hold until the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issues a final ruling on the temporary injunction. 

The 17 books originally removed from the Llano County Library System are:

• “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
• “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• “Spinning” by Tillie Walden
• “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings
• “Shine” and “Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale” by Lauren Myracle
• “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” by Isabel Quintero
• “Freakboy” by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
• “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak
• “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” by Robie Harris
• “My Butt is So Noisy!,” “I Broke My Butt!,” and “I Need a New Butt!” by Dawn McMillan
• “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman,” and “Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts” by Jane Bexley

suzanne@thepicayune.com