“Just remove that offensive bumper sticker, sir, and they’ll be no trouble.”
USA Today, NBC, Yahoo! and other news outlets are snickering as they report the story of an elderly couple pulled over by two police cars in Tennessee because a Buckeye leaf decal on their car, signifying their fealty to the Ohio State football team, was mistaken for a marijuana leaf by the men in blue. “What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?” one of the cops asked the Jonas-Boggionis, the occupants of the vehicle. It was all a big misunderstanding! Boy, are those Tennessee cops dumb, not to be able to tell a Buckeye leaf from pot!
In classic “what’s wrong with this story?” fashion, not one of the news media reports, in their hilarity over the cops stopping the couple out of official botanical and sports ignorance, noted that the police would have been just as wrong if the decal DID portray a marijuana leaf. It’s called the First Amendment, guys—perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s the same Constitutional amendment that allows you media reporters to do the rotten, incompetent job you do covering the news without being declared by law to be the menace to a free and informed society you are. You know, it might be helpful, when the police engage in a blatant First Amendment violation and abuse of state power, for reporters to recognize and explain it to the public as such, rather than make the news story about how the police stopped the Jonas-Boggionis for the “wrong reason.” Even if they had stopped it for what the stories say is the right reason, it would be the wrong reason.
This negligent and unconscionable ignorance of the Bill of Rights is probably one reason why the couple’s answer to the unconstitutional question from the police—“What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?”—wasn’t the necessary and proper,
“It is none of your business, Officer! The First Amendment gives us the right to display any picture, design or message on our car that we choose, and if you want a civil rights law suit that will bring even more embarrassment to your department and community than the fact that you can’t tell an Ohio State decal from a pot-head manifesto, I suggest you keep doing what you’re doing. Otherwise, back off and let us go on our way.”
The cops didn’t know that they were violating the Constitution; the Jonas-Boggionis didn’t know, or worse, were more offended by the officers’ lack of proper respect for college football than their deficit in knowledge of their own official limitations; and our crack news media, which is supposed to be a watchdog on our sacred rights, either didn’t recognize the violation, or thought that police ignorance of what marijuana looks like is more outrageous than their flagrant violation of free speech. Disgraceful all around. One commenter who immediately grasped the real outrage in the item: Glenn Reynolds, on Instapundit. Yes, he’s a law professor, but in the United States of America, the police, the news media and the public are also obligated to know the core rights of citizenship, not just lawyers.
Prof. Reynolds aside, the incident causes the strains of the “Ballad of Sexual Dependency” to echo through my brain, from the second act of “The Three Penny Opera.” After Mrs. Peachum has sung her cynical ballad (Lyrics by Berthold Brecht, Transaltion by Marc Blitzstein, Music by Kurt Weill), she croaks, “Idiots! All of them!”
The reporters and the reported—yes, they are.
_______________________________________
Pointer and Spark: Instapundit
Facts: Yahoo!
Graphic: stuff.com.nz
Ethics Alarms 
I fear you’re living in the past. There is a huge difference between de facto and de jure, and qualified immunity means that there is no effective sanction against this.
For what it’s worth, my reaction on seeing the story was the same as yours. Would I fancy my chances though in court? In Tennessee? Nope. Oh, I’d win in the end (probably), after a decade of appeals, and a cost of my entire life savings plus.
Not worth it. There is no effective recourse, and those who pretend there is are part of the problem.
One of the side effects of a society with too many rules and regulations is we don’t bother to learn them or care about them, to the detriment of the actually important ones, which go unlearned and uncared about with the rest of them.
It is not that bad. This is what the ACLU does.
Although I largely agree with you, I think it’s a bit unfair of you to call out the elderly couple based on this very mediocre seeming reporting. You’re condemning them in part for failing to point out that the police were wrong regardless when they talked to reporters, but you don’t KNOW what they failed to say to reporters. It’s very plausible – in fact, virtually certain – that not everything they told reporters ended up being reported.
Nor would I call failing to talk back strongly to cops, in the way you recommend, “disgraceful” behavior. Police are intimidating, and most ordinary people don’t feel safe talking back to police in the way you advise. I think a little empathy should tell us not to condemn people for not aggressively talking back to stand up to stupid, armed, bullies.
But the real reason I’m posting here is to quote something I coincidentally read today, which seems relevant. From Radley Balko:
Yes,”disgraceful” was intended to apply to the cumulative fact that in whhat I would call an abuse of power case all parties focused elsewhere.That is unfair to the couple. But intimidated or not,they have a duty to oppose state oppression.We all do.
The story you relate is made all the worse by the fact that the sunflower ibis the fecking state flower of Kansas!!!!.
Every day, it seems, gives me more and more reason to upset that the Mayans were wrong…
Knowing that the sunflower is the Kansas state flower makes it a bit harder case to make – but there is a distinct difference between a good faith case of mistaken-plant-identity and detaining someone for no other reason than any message on a bumper sticker.
Does the First Amendment apply to high school students while on school grounds?
Yes, but there are more limits, as maintaining “order” allows for more leeway in what would be considered “compelling interest”.
For example, I don’t know how likely it would be that a shirt saying “F*ck the School Board” would be allowed…
From Wikipedia, but an accurate summary of the state of the law in a murky area:
“The right of free speech (of students) is not itself absolute: SCOTUS has consistently upheld regulations as to time, place, and manner of speech, provided that they are “reasonable.” In applying this reasonableness test to regulations limiting student expression, the Court has recognized that the age and maturity of students is an important factor to be considered.
In the school context, the United States Supreme Court has identified three major relevant considerations:
1. The extent to which the student speech in question poses a substantial threat of disruption (Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist.).
2. Whether the speech is offensive to prevailing community standards (Bethel School District v. Fraser).
3. Whether the speech, if allowed as part of a school activity or function, would be contrary to the basic educational mission of the school (Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier).
“Each of these considerations has given rise to a separate mode of analysis, and in Morse v. Frederick the Court implied that any one of these may serve as an independent basis for restricting student speech.”
“and maturity of students”
I’ve met modern students. By the logic above, they should all be muzzled.
How about “maturity of students in comparison to their adult counterparts”?
That isn’t any better. Have you met teachers in HS lately?
I give you – Chicago teacher strike of 2012 and the Madison Wisconsin protests.
The prosecution rests. 🙂
Agree with the First Amendment principle involved but there are certain bumper stickers (this wasn’t one of them) likely to have predictable results: “Bad cop, no donut for you” is one I’ve seen.
Well, they should predictably have no effect at all. I’m going to print up bumper stickers that say “I have a rotting corpse in my trunk, or maybe I’m just kidding.” And drive through Tennessee.
Send me copies of every one you make. They will go on my car as well.
I don’t think that will go down well.
My prediction of what would happen with such a bumper sticker is that police would “find” drugs in your vehicle. You can find examples this on YouTube. Similar things happen when police stop people to do a sobriety check on them. If you go along with it, they let you go with a warning. If you contest the illegal stop, they write you a ticket for running a stop sign or reckless driving (automatic 1-year loss of license). Police routinely set up “seat belt roadblocks” on major roads on the weekend. When I told a city official that I thought that was illegal, he said that as long as the judges in town were OK with it, it really didn’t matter (he wasn’t OK with it, but nothing he can do).
Our city police officers have dashcams and tiecams, but they are not required to turn the footage in. They are allowed to take it home, edit it, and turn in the parts they want to. You need to realize that a nearby county jail has held people for over a year without letting them make a phone call, see an attorney, or even acknowledge they are at the jail. Pleading guilty is often your only way out. The DOJ has cited them for the abuses, but seem powerless to do more than wag their fingers.
Jack, you know what our rights are supposed to mean, and so do we, but this is the reality that most of us live in. The ACLU is great for standing up for our rights, and our rights don’t mean that much anymore. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled that schools can test all students for drugs and they can search a student’s vehicle during school hours, no matter where it is parked, and the results of the search are admissible in court.
There are bad police officers. Most police officers are not bad. Your scenario assumes they are ALL bad.
There is an alternative interpretation. He’s not assuming that all police are bad. He’s assuming that a bumper sticker of the sort you describe would attract the bad and abusive cops to your car.
But that assumes they are there to being with, unless it is like a dog whistle and attracts the bad cops from far jurisdictions…
Dog whistle? No.
It’s more like you’re walking across a park with a lot of dogs, who are mostly well trained, while holding a juicy steak in your hand. A well-trained dog will let you walk by, and maybe nine out of ten of the dogs you pass are well-trained. But the tenth dog, who is not well-trained, is going to come running up to you to beg for the steak (or try to snatch it).
When you drive through a state with a provocative bumper sticker, nearly all the cops you pass will ignore you. But if you happen to drive by a bad cop, he might not ignore you.
Maybe not, but it’s only logical to assume that they’re bad when you deal with them. Sure, the old folks would have been right to say “First Amendment, so shove off,” and maybe the police would have said “Wow, you’re right, sorry.” Or maybe they’d have landed a nice fat contempt of cop citation. Unless it’s the hill they’re willing to die on, I can’t say I blame them for not going full-on with it. From what I’ve heard, though, the cops suggested they remove the sticker “just to prevent more confusion” and they refused… so a few points for them I guess?
There is no such thing as a “contempt of cop citation”, as you know.
Not as such, but as Michael R said above: it is possible to be ticketed for running a stop sign, for reckless driving, for marijuana shake “detected” by a drug dog eager to please his handler/owner. That last one is particularly problematic, as even an honest cop can inadvertantly convey his suspicions to his dog. Of course they aren’t legitimate, but good luck fighting them. I would suspect the kind of cop who pulls someone over for a sticker they don’t like, is the kind who wouldn’t appreciate being told to go stuff his art criticism.
You’ll find it in the unwritten code, next to “walking while black”.
Usually it’s spelt “resisting arrest” or “disorderly conduct”, sometimes “impeding a police officer in the conduct of his duties”. In serious cases, “felony assault” of the police officer’s fists by the suspect’s face.
My friend the major city Chief of Police is aware of the term, and also says that it is a violation of policy and procedure, and officers are trained to handle confrontations otherwise, and properly.
Please ask this man where in Fairyland his home is built, for I wish to purchase a home there.
Police can and do invent the most petty of reasons to harass someone who has failed to show proper respect.
Try being rude to a cop writing you a ticket, and see how many you end up with at the end of the day.
Being rude to a cop is as unconscionable as being rude to anyone. Demanding one’s Constitutional rights is something else entirely. I sided with the cop in the Prof.Gates controversy. But a citizen who knows his rights and is willing to stand up for them will not be a victim of “contempt of cop.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxjNVSCs_Lg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i5sDOdoFqg
Your faith in the police is nice to see, but I fear it is misplaced.
I used to think that most cops were good people who sought to merely protect and serve, but I’ve come to realize that in fact most took the job because it gave them authority and a gun.
Refuse a search of your car, or assert your rights, and you will see – most officers will NOT react kindly.
Now I’m going to start researching to see if I can find a source. The hypothesis is that the percentage of crime committed by Police as a percentage of the police population is higher than the percentage of crime by citizens in the total country population minus police.
And by this I mean, that if you were in a dark alley with a cop behind you and a citizen in front of you, you would statistically be safer (if you knew only one of them was a criminal) running towards the citizen.
“It is none of your business, Officer! The First Amendment gives us the right to display any picture, design or message on our car that we choose.” Not according to the criminal code of the state of Alabama, which lists this not only as a crime but one that will land you on the Alabama sex offender registry: “• Public display of obscene bumper sticker, sign or writing – ALA. CODE § 13A-12-131”
And then, once on the registry, most will insist that the individual no longer has any constitutional rights at all, regardless of what he did to get him there.
Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment. Thus the driver would be wrong in that hypothetical. Nothing obscene about the bumper sticker I proposed.
It is, if it is done while speaking on a matter of national concern, as in Cohen v. California.
I would argue that Westboro’s use of “fag” would also count as profanity, and even THOSE jackholes get away with it.
Of course, in some countries, “fag” is just another word for cigarette.
Whatever is is, it isn’t obscene.
Ah, but what is the definition of obscene? Who decides what is obscene? (rhetorical question)