WaPo: ‘If the facts alleged … are true, this … incident [was] more like home raids by Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution than like what we should expect in the United States’

WaPo: ‘If the facts alleged … are true, this … incident [was] more like home raids by Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution than like what we should expect in the United States’ by Eugene Volokh:

From Friday’s opinion in Bray v. Planned Parenthood (6th Cir. Mar. 21, 2014) (paragraph break added):

If the facts alleged in the complaint are true, this case involves an incident that is more like home raids by Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution than like what we should expect in the United States of America. A surprise raid was made on a judgment debtor’s home to enforce an order of execution on property of the debtor. The order was ostensibly for the purpose of obtaining property of value to be seized, but was obviously focused instead on all means for the debtor to express ideas.

The debtor was required to sit on his couch while flak-jacketed U.S. Marshals, along with agents of advocates for moral and political positions that the debtor despised, plus persons with unknown identities and purposes, went through and seized the books and papers, and computers and cameras, of the debtor and his family. The only exception was for children’s books and Bibles. The interior of the home was videotaped. The debtor was not allowed to leave the couch, to go outside, or to call his lawyer, although eventually a marshal called the debtor’s lawyer.