Next time you get pulled over by a State Trooper on the interstate, think:

[icymist]

Federal judge: State can prohibit profanity on public highways

That's right. If you cuss, you go to jail. And you thought you were in a free country!

A North Carolina law prohibiting “profane” or “indecent” language on public highways does not violate the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled recently in the case of an intoxicated individual who yelled at police officers.

The statute in question provides: “If any person shall, on any public road or highway and in the hearing of two or more persons, in a loud and boisterous manner, use indecent or profane language, he shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.”

Danial A. Flowers was convicted under this law and convicted as well of public intoxication and resisting or obstructing a police officer. The June 2006 incident occurred in Graham County on a section of a public highway running through Fontana Village Resorts in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Officers spotted a parked truck with coolers full of beer, trash and a group of people. As the officers approached, Flowers allegedly called them a “dickhead” and “f---king a--holes.”

After his conviction before a federal magistrate, Flowers appealed to the U.S. District Court. The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina filed an amicus brief, supporting Flowers’ constitutional challenge to the profanity law. Flowers and the ACLU contended that the law was overbroad on its face and as applied to him. In First Amendment jurisprudence, a facial challenge asks whether a law as it is written violates free expression on its face, while an as-applied challenge focuses upon the specific application of the law to the individual litigant.

On Nov. 8, U.S. District Judge Lacy H. Thornburg rejected the facial-overbreadth challenge in United States v. Flowers, reasoning that the profanity law covers only fighting words — a narrow category of unprotected speech involving face-to-face personal insults. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1942 in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire that fighting words were not a form of protected speech because “such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

Read the full article

[Warpy]

1. Anybody who tries to hardass a cop when he's been pulled over

is a damned fool. Politeness will get you off with a warning unless the offense has been an egregious one.

Maybe one time out of a hundred you'll run into a bad cop. Politeness to those guys will save your life.

[maxsolomon]

5. but that's exactly the problem here, isn't it?

its not just that its a bad idea to cuss a cop, it's that its explicity a crime.

free speech keeps getting defined down.

[MADem]

14. I think the law is a bit goofily specific, but surely there are other laws that

are already on the books to which such outbursts can apply--interfering with the duty of the cop, or something on those lines.

And is the exhortation against 'cussing in the presence' or 'cussing AT' the officer?

[MADem]

13. Yeah--my first thought isn't "Fuck you very much, Ossifer!" when I get pulled over! nt

[CRF450]

15. Yup, I'v been pulled a few times...

1st time was for a blown license plate light, and two others were for speeding, and pulled over again by another cause he just wanted to check out my car and give me compliments on it, (a somewhat modified Trans Am) can you believe that?? That was a cool cop.

Anyways I'v been polite to all of them and they didn't give me shit but just a verbal warning and let me be.

[stirlingsliver]

2. No Fucking Way!

No fucking way am I fucking going to be fucking intimidated into giving up my fucking right to free fucking speech.

Fuck.

And Fuck again.

Fuck.

[VP505]

8. I agree, and

also think everyone should make a point of cussing on those highways. Clog up the system with this nonsense and let the Fascists explain to the taxpayers at election time why their jails are overcrowded and the cost to run them are so high.

[stirlingsliver]

11. Fuck, Yeah!

Fuck up the fucking system and fucking make the fucking fascists fucking explain.

[Didereaux]

3. Cp,[letely unconstitutional on the face of it...just waiting to go to USSUPCT...

Even Scalia would null that law. Bet the farm that the USSUPCT would issue a ruling of nullity without even commenting other than to reference previous rulings of free speech.

But you have to understand that the bible thumpers feel about freedom of speech exactly as the PC Touchy-Feelies do...'you are free to say anything that they approve of!.

[icymist]

4. "outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

There's that word again, 'morality'. Again, I ask... whose morality? Who will define this term for the rest of us? Huh? Apparently, the state is attempting this, no doubt along with the Department Of Faith Initiatives in the WH?

[Lord Wortherington]

6. I just call them fascists.

A lot of them don't know how to take that one. If they even know what the word means, which in most cases, they don't.

[stillcool]

7. where is George Carlin ...

when you need him? I wonder if how the word is used in a sentence makes a difference. Like fuck me..or I am so fucked? I think the police I know may have a harder time curbing their swear-age use than I will.

[BuyingThyme]

9. When I was in Crawford at Camp Casey,

the officer asked a gal to put her protest sign away because she used the word pussy to refer to Bush.

Where I'm from, a cop wouldn't even notice.

[Basileus Basileon]

10. Think: "Cursing out a police officer never accomplishes anything."

[LiberalFighter]

12. I guess that cop has a thin skin

[onethatcares]

16. so if the cop says,

on the ground mutherfukker in front of your wife and your kids, you can make a citizens arrest? Of course, law enforcement officers are not prone to such language, sorry, my bad.

[depakid]

17. Sounds like this had more to do with disorderly or aggresive conduct

than with the words that were said. Even so, the case send a very bad message to law enforcement, and nearly invites them to make improper arrests- and potentially escalate a situation that could be dealt with more reasonably by "them that's got the guns."