Court: Arresting A Driver For Shouting 'Fuck You' Out The Window At A Nearby State Trooper Is Unconstitutional
from the because-duh dept
Slowly but surely, law enforcement officers are being made to understand that speech they don't like isn't illegal speech. I mean, several of them likely already know this but they're willing to roll the dice on a lawsuit rather than endure a minimal hit to their self-image.
This isn't to say it's a good idea to give cops the finger or tell them to go fuck themselves. This is just to say that doing these things isn't a crime. It's protected speech. Cops aren't obliged to serve and protect citizens. That's just a cool slogan to paint on the side of cruisers. But they are obligated to uphold Constitutional rights, which is something they seem to have a hard time doing.
Courts have reminded cops that flipping the bird isn't an arrestable offense. It's protected speech. They've also reminded cops that this is a form of protected criticism, as crude as it is. The very heart of First Amendment protections is the right of citizens to criticize their government. Sometimes criticism takes the form of a fleeting f-bomb from a passing vehicle.
Here's how this latest reminder starts, courtesy of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals [PDF]:
In 2015, Trooper Cross was performing a routine traffic stop on a van pulled to the shoulder of a busy five-lane highway in Fort Smith, Arkansas. From 50 feet away, Trooper Cross heard Thurairajah, who was driving by, yell “f**k you!” out of his car window. The van’s occupants were a mother and her two young children. Thurairajah was driving at about 35 miles-per-hour on the far lane of the road moving in the opposite direction. Trooper Cross observed the two children in the van react to the yell.
Trooper Lagarian Cross should have let the story end there. At best, the story could have made it way back to the station with some embellishment and resentful commentary about ungrateful citizens and their big mouths. Instead, Trooper Cross did this:
Trooper Cross ended the traffic stop of the van and pursued Thurairajah, stopped him, and arrested him, citing Arkansas’s disorderly conduct law. Trooper Cross believed the shout constituted “unreasonable or excessive noise” under the law.
A stupid response to a stupid move. The arrestee spent several hours in jail before all charges were dropped. Thurairajah sued Trooper Cross and prevailed in the lower court. The trooper appealed. The Appeals Court doesn't have any good news for him.
Cross argued he was entitled to qualified immunity because he reasonably believed Thurairajah's "fuck you!" violated the law. The Appeals Court takes a not-so-subtle dig at the trooper's rationale when discussing his arguments.
In other words, Trooper Cross is protected by qualified immunity if a reasonable officer in his shoes would have reasonably believed, even if mistaken, based on objective facts, that Thurairajah was violating the disorderly conduct statute’s excessive noise prohibition by shouting the two-word insult from a moving vehicle with an unamplified human voice.
The hinting at the ridiculousness of the trooper's argument is followed by some case law, which shows there's nothing on the books backing the trooper's "reasonable officer" assertions.
Under the statute, the verbal content of Thurairajah’s yell is irrelevant. The statute does not penalize offensive speech, only unreasonable or excessive noise. Arkansas courts have not previously concluded that a two-word yell could violate the disorderly conduct statute’s unreasonable or excessive noise provision. To be sure shouting can form the basis of disorderly conduct. Those cases where shouting was part of a scenario that resulted in a finding of disorderly conduct, however, involved extended loud shouting and disruptive behavior or amplified sound. As the district court noted, context matters in analyzing the facts. In no case, has a two-word unamplified outburst constituted disorderly conduct.
It's not even close.
Thurairajah’s shout was unamplified and fleeting, no crowd gathered because of it, city traffic was not affected, no complaints were lodged by anyone in the community, business was not interrupted, nor were an officer’s orders disobeyed. Thurairajah’s conduct may have been offensive, but it was not an unreasonable or excessive noise.
That's the Fourth Amendment violation -- depriving the passing driver of his freedom with a completely bogus arrest. Then there's the First Amendment violation. Thurairajah claimed the arrest was a retaliatory response to his protected, two-word criticism of Trooper Cross. The court agrees.
First, Thurairajah’s profane shout was protected activity. See, e.g., Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 25 (1971) (holding where defendant walked through courthouse corridor wearing jacket bearing the words “F**k the Draft” in place where women and children were present and no showed no intent to incite disobedience to or disrupt the draft, state lacked power to punish defendant for underlying content of message the inscription conveyed). Second, Trooper Cross’s arrest was an action that would chill continued activity by a person of ordinary firmness. As we recognized in Hoyland, “there can be little doubt that being arrested for exercising the right to free speech would chill a person of ordinary firmness from exercising that right in the future.” And, according to a fair reading of Trooper Cross’s affidavit, the arrest was motivated, at least in part, by the content of the shout. Finally, as discussed above, Cross had neither probable cause nor arguable probable cause to arrest Thurairajah.
That's all four prongs of the free speech retaliation test. And there's no squeaking out of this, thanks to limited case law. Both rights were clearly established at the point Trooper Cross decided to terminate a traffic stop and arrest a passing driver for his drive-by f-bomb. Cross is headed back to the lower court to face the consequences of his stupid, retaliatory actions.
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, 8th circuit, eric thurairajah, free speech, lagarian cross, police, retaliatory arrest
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Some friends of mine and I tailed a cop once, but nothing happened.
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Tailing cops
When I was in my twenties and hung out with teens to party all night (read: play tabletop RPGs on Jolt Cola until dawn) tailing police was a common nighttime pastime for those of us who had vehicles, or friends with vehicles.
The thing is, some nights there was a noticeable elevated police presence, and it was a pre-internet challenge to discover why there were two to five times as many cruisers out than typical. Generally, we'd never find out where the incident / checkpoints / ball was occurring.
At worst, the drivers in a car would notice us, and let us pass them with a cold glare. It was in the late 80s / early 90s, right at the tale end of an SFPD mellow period.
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Let's be honest though: Is he really going to face any consequences, or will it be the Arkansas taxpayers that have to deal with the fallout?
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Re:
It's the latter. Assuming a judge is willing to hand out a fine(and even that would be quite the achievement) it will almost certainly be against the department and he won't pay a cent. The taxpayers in the area however will be on the hook for the entire amount.
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Re:
The latter. Which in decent system would lead to taxpayers holding the people who allow this sort of thing accountable, or at least vote people in to higher authority who will deal with incompetence and corruption.
But, for some reason, it just seems to end up with people whining about high taxes and "socialism" when their existing tax dollars can't pay for other things due to these costs.
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Throw the Book at Him ...
and teach this officer and others the error of their ways. Yeah, right. The real offense is disrespect of cop. Some times you get the death penalty for that.
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Re: Throw the Book at Him ...
Executing the offender has the advantage that the storyline is all yours to tell.
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Re: Re: Throw the Book at Him ...
It used to be, but these days you never know when you are being videoed.
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Re: Re: Re: Throw the Book at Him ...
No worries, there's always that magic 'get out of jail/murder charge'-free phrase that work on a higher than zero number of judges/juries: 'I feared for my life'.
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That'll show 'em
Cross is headed back to the lower court to face the consequences of his stupid, retaliatory actions.
Which is likely to be a fine against the department/taxpayers, some ribbing from the other cops for not coming up with a better excuse, and maybe some 'paid administrative leave'.
Yup, that'll certainly send the right message.
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Offensive? That's just how we say "hello" around here.
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how is this still a thing?
How can any cop not know by now that someone saying or showing an f-bomb is completely protected to do so under the first amendment?
I can understand an officer not knowing the finer details about obscure or new laws but this very thing has been happening for decades. Do they just not train the cops anymore on common issues?
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Protected on paper, sure. In practice, not so much
How can any cop not know by now that someone saying or showing an f-bomb is completely protected to do so under the first amendment?
What makes you think they don't? The odds of them facing any real punishment for arresting someone for contempt of cop is the in 'zero to none' range more often than not, so they have no reason not to abuse their power to punish anyone who dares question and/or say mean things to them.
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Re: how is this still a thing?
I'm pretty sure he knows. I'm also pretty sure he's used to getting away with stuff like this all the time.
This doesn't read like someone who's ignorant of the law, it reads like yet another egotistical bully who normally doesn't get any comeback when he abuses his power.
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Re: how is this still a thing?
How can any cop not know by now that someone saying or showing an f-bomb is completely protected to do so under the first amendment?
You really think a person with the title "law enforcement" in his job description should actually know the law? Sheesh!
/s
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Re: how is this still a thing?
How can any cop not know by now that someone saying or showing an f-bomb is completely protected to do so under the first amendment?
I'm sure they do know that, but I am also sure that if you try to explain it to one, you simply have a resisting arrest charge added. Just because a charge gets thrown out eventually (or maybe not) doesn't mean you didn't pay a very large fine known as attorney's fees.
Seriously, if someone is given the authority to act as law enforcement, that person should be held to HIGHER standard than the general public by virtue of having been delegated that power.
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