Posted on 08/18/2015 10:05:31 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Legal experts say he made a big mistake.
A Tennessee teenager allegedly squealed “pigs!” at police officers Friday and wound up being the one confined to a pen. The First Amendment generally protects such insults but the pig-caller made a critical error, legal experts say.
William Reece, 19, was riding in a Honda Accord traveling at most 40 miles per hour when he cracked a rear passenger door and yelled the insult at officers performing a traffic stop, according to a police report.
The unamused patrolmen with the Newport Police Department caught up with the car and arrested Reece for disorderly conduct "due to creating a hazardous condition that served no legitimate purpose."
The arrest report does not allege use of alcohol or drugs and it’s unclear if Reece, who posted $500 bond the same day, agrees the facts are as alleged, particularly that he opened the door rather than rolled down its window.
But if he did make the less conventional choice and opened the door, experts say, the arrest probably was constitutional, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech rights.
“If the arrest had occurred for shouting through an open window, it probably would have been unconstitutional,” says Vanderbilt University Law School professor Christopher Slobogin.
But, Slobogin says, “opening a door while a car is moving is probably a traffic violation” and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1996 Whren v. United States decision therefore allows for such a stop.
Slobogin says the decision means that “even if there is good reason to believe the real reason an individual is arrested is because of an exercise of First Amendment rights or animus toward the arrestee, probable cause for a traffic violation immunizes the arrest from constitutional challenge.”
An exception from the general rule exists for racial discrimination, Slobogin says.
Clay Calvert, director of the University of Florida’s Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, agrees the arrest probably was constitutional if Reece opened the car door.
“While the First Amendment generally protects yelling epithets like 'pigs' at police officers, especially at public demonstrations against alleged police abuses of power, this case appears to be very different,” he says.
“If Reece really opened the door of a moving vehicle traveling about 35 miles per hour to yell 'pigs,' then the arrest is based upon Reece's conduct rather than his speech,” Calvert says. “Rolling down a car window to yell 'pigs' would be protected by the First Amendment, but not opening a moving car's door, which could create a hazard for other vehicles.”
The police report says an 18-month-old child shared the back seat of the car with Reece. It does not say if the toddler was strapped into a car seat.
Timothy Zick, a law professor at the College of William and Mary, says it's curious that Reece faces a charge for disorderly conduct, rather than for committing a traffic violation.
Police Process Thousands of Guns at Buyback Events
Zick, like other experts, says opening the door was a poor decision.
Ordinarily, he says, calling an officer a "pig" is protected by the First Amendment. "There is a very narrow category of 'fighting words' that is considered not to be protected speech, but the utterance in this case likely would not satisfy the categorical requirements – basically, in context, the word would lead a reasonable person to want to engage in an imminent brawl," he says.
Had the insult been the sole basis for police action, Zick says, "it is unlikely the arrest would withstand First Amendment scrutiny."
The incident was first reported by The Newport Plain Talk. An article on the police-monitoring activist website CopBlock.org denounces the arrest and seeks to rally pressure for the charge to be dropped.
And, of course, I’m sure this young man is a registered Democrat.
Lots of Newports in this country. No idea where this one is.
Tennessee
White kid goes to jail for yelling, “pig” (as if the open door was the real reason).
vs.
Farrakhan, Black Panthers and the hands up crowd calling for the deaths of pigs and whites gets applause and encouragement from the WH.
Thank you.
First word of the article - A
Second word - Tennessee
And as we all know Tennessee teenagers never venture out of Tennessee.
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
-Weather Underground leader and wife of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, referring to the Manson murders
Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09
________________________________________________________
"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==
________________________________________________________
"In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. ..."
“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,”
How is one supposed to react to this without knowing the skin color of those involved?
Looks like a disrespectful, spoiled brat to me. I don’t think much of this kid’s parents.
Crying “pig” is protected speech. Opening a car door in a moving vehicle creates an illegal hazard. Its true he would not have been arrested had he not cried pig but that is because he would not have been noticed. Was the cop supposed to turn a blind eye after being invited to observe this person?
The sixties want their haircut back. . .
Clearly the little punk needed an attitude adjustment for his disrespect of authority, and setting a pretty chunky cash bond is a great way to penalize him and put a crimp in his style.
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