I think you meant "the fifth circuit is a federal appeals court." Circuit court is synonymous with federal appeals court.
That doesn't automatically mean a ruling applies nationally. A judge has to specify it. Note that in the Seattle travel ban case, the district court's ruling said that the defendants (the US government) must not enforce the order. Naturally that applies nationally, since he didn't specify a state.
Since the party being sued here is not the US government, the extent of the ruling is less clear to me.
I too am not a lawyer, but I think this kind of applies nationally. It's not an injunction or TRO like in the Seattle case, where a straight-up order was issued: stop now, you are forbidden to do this. In this case they're saying "in future court cases, the law should be interpreted this way."
So they've provided a precedent for other courts when other police are sued on the same grounds. This won't stop police across the nation immediately the way the TRO stopped the travel ban immediately, but over time I imagine it will become less common to try to stop people from recording the police, as it becomes progressively more common knowledge that you're not going to win that if it goes to court.
but there are 10 other circuits on an equal footing and dissenting opinion even within the court, so, while it is a federal matter and could be applicable throughout the country, you probably don't want to be the person who has to go to the Supreme Court to prove it.
The text of the ruling seems to imply that the Fifth is not the first circuit to reach this conclusion.
"We agree with every circuit that has ruled on this question: Each has concluded that the First Amendment protects the right to record the police."
This has a footnote to it:
"See Alvarez, 679 F.3d at 595–96; Glik, 655 F.3d at 82, 85; Smith, 212 F.3d at 1333; see also Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436, 439 (9th Cir. 1995)."
Are there any lawyers here willing to decipher this for us?
Each of these (except the last) is an abbreviated citation to a published court opinion cited earlier in the decision.
Am. Civil Liberties Union v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 595–602 (7th Cir. 2012)
Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78, 82 (1st Cir. 2011)
Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332, 1333 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 978 (2000)
F.3d is an abbreviation for Federal Reporter, 3rd series (the current series of the Federal Reporter, which publishes Federal appeals court decisions ).
When you see a citation like x F.3d y, it means "Federal Reporter, 3rd series, volume x, page y". The form "x F.3d at z" means "volume x, page z, but that's the middle of a decision, not its start" (called a "pin cite"). The form "x. F.3d y, z" is another way of saying "the decision starts at page y of volume x, but here we are specifically referring to page z".
The part in parentheses indicates which particular court wrote the decision (a particular numbered circuit court of appeals) and in what year.
You can often look up the texts of these decisions online in various places, although I don't see a convenient up-to-date free F.3d online anywhere. Originally the concept was going to a library, which would have huge long series of reporters (books that publish court decisions), and you could tell the librarian "I'd like volume 655 of the Federal Reporter 3rd series, please", and then turn to page 85 to see what the First Circuit said on the page in question of its Glik decision.
District court decisions (from the trial level) are cited in the same way but with "F.Supp." (a different reporter); Supreme Court decisions are also cited in the same way but the reporter is "U.S." and the court doesn't have to be mentioned in parentheses, because the Supreme Court is the only court whose decisions are published by United States Reports.
So you might see
Foo v. Bar, x F.Supp. y (D.Somewhere yyyy) ← district court
Foo v. Bar, x F.3d y (nth Cir. yyyy) ← circuit court of appeal
Foo v. Bar, x U.S. y (yyyy) ← Supreme Court
and each one could also cite to a specific page or range of pages within the opinion by using "at z" or "y, z".
