Via Raw Story, I see the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting about a woman in DeKalb County, Georgia, who received a $100 ticket for having an anti-Bush bumper sticker on her car:
It was 9:30 on a recent Friday night when Denise Grier saw blue lights in her rearview mirror.
“The officer asked if I knew I had a lewd decal on my car and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, what did my kids put on my car?’ ”
As it turns out, the decal was an anti-Bush bumper sticker Grier slapped on her 2001 Chrysler Sebring last summer. The bumper sticker — “I’m Tired Of All The BUSH—” — contains an expletive.
The officer “said DeKalb had an ordinance about lewd decals and wrote me a ticket” for $100, said Grier, an oncology nurse at Emory University Hospital who lives in Athens.
Grier said she thanked the officer — and vowed to see him in court
“This is all about free speech,” Grier said in a telephone interview Monday. “The officer pulled me over because he didn’t agree with my politics. That’s what this is about, not whether I support Bush, not because of the war in Iraq, but about my right to free speech.”
Officer Herschel Grangent Jr., a spokesman for the DeKalb County Police Department, confirmed the incident Monday but said he couldn’t “speculate on or discuss another officer’s decision to write a citation.”
I wonder what would have happened if the bumper sticker had read, “Fuck the Draft.”
Pretty straightforward as a matter of law, though as a matter of tact and good sense, it might not be a great idea to put a bumper sticker on your car that reads, “Fuck the Police.”
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She’s got a good 1983 claim, doesn’t she? No qualified immunity . . .
This just in — the Bible contains obscene language.
Isaiah 41:19:
“I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together…”
“She’s got a good 1983 claim, doesn’t she?”
Except for damages…
Eugene Volokh notes that the Georgia Supreme Court has addressed analogous circumstances:
Except for damages
How can we know what her damages are? She would be entitled to emotional distress damages. She might be traumatized by this. Maybe every time she sees a police officer she hyperventilates because of being wrongfully cited.
Then again, she might be emboldened and better off. Sometimes having something “bad” like this happen to you reminds you how precious liberty is, and how little respect many police officers have for your liberty.
Who knows? I thus think it’s speculative to argue she might not have suffered any damages.
Actually, she should be able to sue for nominal damages and attorney’s fees. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266-267 (1978); Familias Unidas v. Briscoe, 619 F.2d 391, 402 (5th Cir. 1980).
See here for CNN’s story on it.