in 2016 in ohio police pulled a guy out of a crowd because he was wearing a t-shirt that said f the police they basically taunted him and eventually arrested him subsequently a civil rights lawsuit was filed it wound its way through the federal court system eventually ending up at the sixth circuit the federal appellate court after the plaintiff had lost i believe qualified immunity had been granted to the police officers so just recently now and the case was argued in february of last year but just recently i think it was february 8th the 6th circuit issued a published opinion in which they completely denied of course if you're denied qualified immunity doesn't matter if it's complete or not complete you're denied qualified immunity so that's what happened the court basically said look why do we have to keep telling you police officers as we've done repeatedly that you can't arrest people because they use profane language and this has happened over and over again and i just recently posted about a case here in west virginia where my client was arrested in his own yard for using profane language in his interactions with law enforcement this is happening all over the country i put the decision or the opinion from the sixth circuit up on the website at the civil rights lawyer dot com it's not a long read i would highly suggest and recommend that you read it but uh let's see let me just go on a couple of of of parts of the opinion that i thought were important first of all again like i said the court emphasized to put it lightly that there is there is no the fighting words exception to the first amendment is very narrow and police cannot use that profanity alone is insufficient to establish criminal behavior there's a ton of case law on that out there the court held that both the supreme court and the sixth circuit have made clear that police officers are expected to exercise greater restraint in their response than the average citizen so like i pointed out in our west virginia case the there has to be some third party there to hear this profane language and be sensitive to it and actually complain to fall under the west virginia statute and isn't it funny how i pointed out in that case that isn't these police officers who signed up for this job are always just so sensitive they have just such delicate ears and and they're offended so easily and you know what that's just that's just a joke it's not that they care about hearing profane language it's not that they care about some innocent person hearing profane language what is it about well it's about either number one respecting their authority as they perceive their authority to be or number two it's just a pretext for detaining and or arresting somebody and or searching somebody who's already on their radar for some reason and both of those are both of those are improper and this has been happening all over the country and this is you know you've probably seen umpteen youtube videos of the police confronting people arresting people whatever as a result of let's say profane language whether it's a t-shirt as in this case or words coming out of their mouth so i've got a lot of the case law up on the website but importantly the court denied qualified immunity for these officers finding that the case law from the supreme court through the the federal circuits was full of similar examples of illegal arrests where police officers were found to have violated constitutional rights by making similar arrests as these including out of ohio where this incident occurred as the u.s supreme court has held quote the freedom of individuals to verbally oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state a conclusion that finds a familiar echo in the common law so not only did the sixth circuit find that these police officers had committed a false arrest in violation of the fourth amendment by taking this guy into custody without probable cause but they also likely committed the civil rights violation of first amendment retaliation so the basic three elements of first amendment retaliation are that number one that the person engaged in constitutionally protected speech now the court held in this case that the defendants did not even contest that the plaintiff shirt was constitutionally protected speech nor could they his f the police t-shirt was clearly protected speech according to the court they said it's well established that absent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions the state may not consistently with the first and fourteenth amendments make the simple public display of a four-letter expletive a criminal offense secondly first amendment retaliation requires that the person suffer an adverse action likely to chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that protected speech the court held it here the police officers removed the plaintiff from a public event under armed escort that act was neither inconsequential as a matter of law nor was it a petty slight or minor annoyance and therefore satisfied that element so lastly a plaintiff has to prove and again this is a civil lawsuit that the protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the decision to take the adverse action and the court held that while the defendants argue lie while they lie while they commit perjury and their lawyers lie to the court while the defendants argue that they removed the plaintiff from the fairgrounds because he was filming people the plaintiff alleges that blair one of the officers walked up to him flanked by the other defendants slash officers and yelled quote where's this shirt i want to see this shirt as the officers surrounded the plaintiff and escorted him from the building one of the officers said to the plaintiff quote you've been given an order to vacate the property so you're leaving while walking the plaintiff through the fairgrounds they repeatedly questioned whether they had taken or the plaintiff question whether they had taken an oath to uphold the constitution one of the officers said they were escorting him to the front gate and while enroute to the jail one officer said to the plaintiff quote how's that work you got a shirt that said f the police but you want us to uphold the constitution the court held therefore that a reasonable jury considering those facts could conclude that the officers were motivated to surround wood and require him to leave in part because he wore a shirt that said f the police and therefore they reversed the trial court's decision to grant summary judgment to the police officers and send it back to have a trial and that's where it's headed now as the plaintiff gets to finally have his day in court have his trial so you would think the police officers and their employers these police agencies the government basically would have gotten the memo by now that profane language expletives whatever you want to call them alone doesn't somehow trigger martial law so you can take a look at this ruling again from february 8th from the sec the 6th circuit up on the website at the civil rights lawyer.com [Music]