Carla Gericke

Carla Gericke is an author, activist, and attorney.

She studied law at the University of Pretoria from 1989 to 1993, graduating with a Baccalaureus Procurationis degree.

After winning a green card in the Diversity Lottery, she moved to California with her husband.

After passing the California Bar, she worked as in-house corporate counsel at Fortune 500 companies.

Born in South Africa, she immigrated to the United States in the 1990s after winning a green card in the Diversity Visa Lottery.

She became a U.S. citizen in 2000.

Gericke practiced law in South Africa, and California, working at Apple Computer, Borland, Logitech, and Scient Corporation.

Gericke is President Emeritus of the Free State Project.

In 2008, she received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York.

In February 2008, Gericke moved from New York City to New Hampshire for the Free State Project, a 501c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to attract 20,000 liberty activists to New Hampshire.

She organized the FSP's Porcupine Freedom Festival (colloquially known as "PorcFest") three times in 2009, 2010 and in 2020.

On 24 March 2010, Gericke and others were en route in two cars to a friend's house when they were pulled over by police in the town of Weare, New Hampshire.

She was advised she wasn't being pulled over, so she parked at a nearby school, and took out a video camera to film the interaction.

Though the camera wasn't properly functioning, and she had announced to the officer that she was recording, a second officer approached her vehicle and demanded to see her camera.

When she failed to hand it over, she was arrested.

She was initially charged with disobeying a police officer and obstructing a government official.

After an argument at the police station when the Weare PD refused to give her a receipt for her confiscated camera, she was also charged with unlawful interception of oral communications, a felony carrying a maximum 7-year sentence.

All charges were dropped before going to trial.

Gericke filed suit against the town and the officers, claiming in her pleadings that the officers' actions were "retaliatory prosecution in breach of her constitutional rights."

The case went to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.

The defendants, the individual officers involved in the incident, the Town of Weare, and Weare Police Department, filed motions for summary judgment, claiming they had qualified immunity because there was no established right to film a traffic stop.

The court denied the motions, ruling instead that the officers had no reasonable expectation to privacy while performing their duties in public.

Based on a previous ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, the court found that Gericke's right to film the officers was established at the time of her arrest.

Furthermore, the Appeals Court found that Gericke's First Amendment rights had been violated and that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity.

The case was settled for $57,500.

Regarding the outcome, Gericke said:

"I'm glad the case is settled. It was a long road, but we now have a binding precedent affirming the First Amendment to record police at traffic stops. I am cautiously optimistic that the settlement will cause law enforcement to be more hesitant to arrest videographers exercising their rights. I think we've already seen positive change come out of this case in that regard."

She became the president of the FSP in 2011.

In 2013, after a nationwide project about police militarization by the ACLU, it was discovered that the Concord Police Department had referred to Free Staters as domestic terrorists in a federal grant application to the United States Department of Homeland Security for a Lenco BearCat, stating:

"The State of New Hampshire's experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type. We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges."

In 2014, she won a landmark First Circuit Court of Appeals case that affirmed the First Amendment right to film police officers.

That same year, she was named one of New Hampshire Magazine's "2014 Remarkable Women" In 2016, Gericke ran as a Republican for New Hampshire State Senate in District 20 (Manchester Wards 3, 4, 10 and 11, and Goffstown) against Democrat Lou D'Allesandro, garnering 40% of the vote in the general election.

In this capacity, she has appeared in the media, and was the driving force behind "triggering the move," which occurred on 3 February 2016, when it was announced at a press conference that 20,000 people had signed the pledge.

As president, she was very vocal in the media about promoting the Free State Project, and has appeared in outlets such as CNN, Forbes, The Economist, Wired, GQ, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, Fox News, NBC, and The New York Times.

In 2018, after a successful recount on a write-in campaign on the Libertarian Party's ballot, she ran as a fusion Republican/Libertarian candidate and received 42% of the vote, up two percentage points in a year when District 20 swung 12–15% left due to the "Blue Wave."

In 2020, Gericke ran again against D'Allesandro in District 20 and again lost, this time by a vote tally of 13,548 to 10,479, or approximately 56–44%.

Gericke was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to David (a South African diplomat) and Madalein Gericke.

Because of her father's work, she traveled extensively as a child, living in the U.S., Sweden, and Brazil.

Her political philosophy developed at a young age.

Growing up in South Africa during the apartheid regime of the National Party, she opposed the government's authoritarian and racist policies.