Can Americans be jailed for making fun of the government? Most would respond with a resounding “No, of course not! The First Amendment protects us from that.”

But Anthony Novak learned otherwise in March 2016, after he created and posted a fake version of the Parma, Ohio, Police Department’s Facebook page.

He copied the department’s name and profile picture onto his satirical Facebook page, but unlike the official page, Novak’s was designated a “Community” page and displayed the slogan: “We no crime,” a parody of the department’s actual slogan, “We know crime.”

During its short life – the page was available for only about 12 hours – Novak published six posts, all parodies. One – echoing Jonathan Swift’s classic satire, “A Modest Proposal,” that suggested Ireland’s poor sell their children as food for the rich – announced a new law forbidding residents to give “ANY HOMELESS person food, money, or shelter in our city for 90 days,” so that “the homeless population eventually leave our city due to starvation.”

Parma police promptly posted a notice on its official page, warning residents not to be fooled by Novak’s parody. Novak in turn posted that same notice on his own page, but also deleted the few posted reader comments opining that his page was fake. After police announced a criminal investigation, Novak took his page down entirely.

Here’s how the case developed: Citing a state law making it a crime to use a computer to disrupt police operations, the police searched Novak’s apartment, seized his phone and laptop and jailed him for four days. A jury acquitted him of the felony charge in August 2016.

Novak then filed a lawsuit against the police, arguing that they had violated his First Amendment rights.

The law enforcement officials replied that they were entitled to “qualified immunity,” a legal doctrine protecting government employees from liability for conduct that has not been clearly established as unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over cases from Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee, ruled that although parody is protected speech, copying the department’s official warning and deleting the comments questioning the page’s authenticity might not be. It concluded that the officers could have reasonably believed that some of Novak’s Facebook activity violated the criminal statute and was not protected by the First Amendment.

Novak asked the Supreme Court to review his case in September 2022. He argued that police should not be allowed to arrest an individual solely for making fun of the government, yet “that is exactly what happened here. If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what would be.” Novak also invited the high court to reconsider the qualified immunity doctrine, especially in cases where protected speech is the basis for arresting someone.

The police response solemnly predicted that a ruling in Novak’s favor could lead to a virtual law enforcement Armageddon, confusing the public, eroding their trust in official social media sites, posing a threat to safety and “exacerbate[ing] the nationwide crisis police agencies are experiencing.”

On Feb. 21, the Supreme Court chose to deny the petition for certiorari. The court would not hear the case.

Using criminal statutes to silence satirists and parodists occurs in countries like Russia, Iran and Thailand, where officials tolerate no disrespect. That it is distinctly un-American.

Yet as recently as 2010, Justice Neil Gorsuch, then a judge for the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, wrote that “the Supreme Court has yet to address how far the First Amendment goes in protecting parody.” That was in a case challenging a prosecutor’s claim of qualified immunity after she approved the search, seizure and arrest of a parodist for allegedly violating the Colorado criminal libel statute.

Refusing to review Novak’s case is a missed opportunity for the court to consider and decide once and for all whether the First Amendment protects satire and parody. And that’s no joke.