[Music] welcome to audit the audits where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers free speech the fighting words doctrine and officer conduct and comes to us from police activities channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve on november 23 2016 officer james sanders of the social circle police department in social circle georgia was conducting a traffic stop off of north cherokee road as officer sanders was concluding his stop an individual who was passing by yelled profanities directed at the officer as he drove by the stop without informing dispatch officer sanders immediately jumped into his patrol vehicle and initiated a stop on the vehicle how's it going license insurance catholic i pulled over yeah i'll be glad to tell you just one second take some time everybody all right who yelled out the window yeah come on back here with me miss burt mr bird yes sir i'm gonna ask you one time how long have you had your license over six months over six months so everybody you're good to hell everybody around here okay i'm gonna ask you one time yes sir all right if you don't we're gonna go another route with it who yelled out of your jeep when you went by us it was brand new who brandon which one is brandon in the front seat got the jeep what'd you have to say nothing no tell me one more time you're going to jail son officer sanders informs mr hughes that if he repeats what he had yelled out the window that he would be taken to jail as mentioned on many episodes of ata the supreme court has routinely held that profanity is protected under the first amendment and that protection extends to criticisms of police the supreme court has tackled the issue of profanity and its relationship to free speech on numerous occasions and in the 1971 case of cohen vs california the court ruled directly on the use of the f word to criticize the government as justice john marshall harlan ii famously noted quote while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of a genre it is nevertheless often true that one man's vulgarity is another's lyric the court reasoned that censoring certain words or phrases that serve as legitimate and non-threatening criticisms would offer the government a quote convenient guys for banning the expression of unpopular views however the cohen ruling did not exclude the possibility of regulating speech to some degree for example in the 1942 supreme court case of chaplinsky vs new hampshire the court developed the concept of fighting words which are words that fail to possess any social value or contribute to the expression of ideas and are solely intended to incite violence the court has since narrowed the fighting words doctrine but the core principle of first amendment protection for criticisms of the government remains intact the court went on to apply this logic to the context of a police encounter in the 1987 supreme court case of houston versus hill stating quote the first amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers speech is often provocative and challenging but it is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience annoyance or unrest given that mr hughes was merely expressing his opinion of police as a whole and did not direct any personal insults or threats of violence to officer sanders it is highly unlikely that a court would find this stop to be legitimate on the basis of mr hughes choice of words what's your name brandon hughes i know who you are is this something you need to say to us that you want to yell out to wonder who you're yelling at look at me when you talk to me son who you going to yell at what'd you say i'm sorry you're sorry get your hands out of your pockets why you want to say that to the police i don't know you'll protect us oh i ain't protecting you 2005 pontiac five f the police you can get back why do you want to f the police son why do you say it then you think it's going to make you a badass or something in front of everybody no sir i don't because i'm getting fussy right now you want the police well here i am right here brother i don't want to why not you're a tough guy come on huh you seem like a little baby the day you was in court remember yes sir i'm giving you every opportunity no sir then why you want to yell about it when you're in front of your buddies right there is it cool not sure you trying to be a bad in front of them you sure yes i'm giving you every opportunity to pick me up you understand officer sanders essentially invites mr hughes to engage in a physical altercation in what appears to be a veiled threat of violence as the fighting words doctrine circulated through various rulings the court was granted more opportunities to refine the concept and its applicability in the 1969 supreme court case of watts vs united states the court clarified that the first amendment does not protect speech that is considered a quote-unquote true threat but failed to thoroughly elaborate on what exactly constitutes a true threat a common theme that has echoed through various courts regarding unprotected speech is the notion that any speech which produces a clear and present danger of a serious intolerable evil that rises above mere inconvenience or annoyance does not enjoy first amendment protection in the 1989 case of texas vs johnson the court considered whether the act of burning a united states flag fell into the doctrine of fighting words and concluded that quote no reasonable onlooker would have regarded johnson's generalized expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of the federal government as a direct personal insult or an invitation to exchange fisticuffs the court ruled that burning a united states flag was in fact protected free speech but what is more interesting is the contextual definition that was assigned to the fighting words doctrine through this ruling the court specifically noted that burning a flag did not equate to quote an invitation to exchange fisticuffs which suggests that any language or action that did result in an invitation to engage in a physical altercation was not protected by free speech and thus could be considered a crime under an applicable statute under section 16-11-39 of georgia's criminal code a person commits the offense of disorderly conduct when such person acts in a violent or tumultuous manner toward another person whereby such person is placed in reasonable fear of the safety of such person's life limb or health and it is entirely possible that a court would find officer sanders his conduct to be in violation of this code not only was the officer's stop likely invalid but there is a strong argument to be made that officer sanders violated georgia criminal code by inviting mr hughes to engage in a physical altercation now let me ask you this what have i ever done to you nothing at all not a thing what has my partner ever done to you not a thing not a thing right yes sir so why do you want the police now it's a little bit more than being stupid is what i think so do you let me ask you something next time you get caught selling weed or having weed on you you think somebody's gonna try to cut you a break if i go to jerking everybody out that jeep and i find one ounce of weed do you think i'm gonna take everybody to jail yes sir no sir just me no well i'm gonna take every one of your friends to jail yes sir how old are you i didn't know y'all could be so stupid anymore everybody get out of the jeep you want to see how big of a police is going to be i'm fixing to show you i'll fix the search every one of you and every ounce of this jeep my so help me god if i find one seed every one of you is going to go to jail because of the police son officer sanders threatens to search and arrest everyone in the vehicle for mr hughes's remarks and proceeds to conduct what appears to be a plain view search of the vehicle the plain view doctrine is an exception to the fourth amendment warrant requirement that allows a member of law enforcement to seize evidence and contraband that are found in plain view during a lawful observation and courts have routinely upheld searches that employ this concept when the plainview doctrine was first founded in the 1971 supreme court case of coolidge vs new hampshire the court initially concluded that any contraband seized through the doctrine must have been discovered by the officer inadvertently but the court later eliminated that requirement in the 1990 case of horton versus california the court clarified that there are three requirements that must be met in order for a plainview search to be valid and what would later become known as the horton test first the officer must be lawfully present at the place where the evidence was plainly viewed second the officer must have a lawful right of access to the object and third the incriminating character of the object must be immediately apparent according to the horton test a plain view search is only valid if the cause for the initial stop is lawful and as discussed before it is highly unlikely that a court would consider officer sanders initial stop to be legitimate therefore officer sanders would not have been within his authority to conduct a search of any kind on any of the individuals involved in this encounter it's funny ain't it y'all laugh huh did you laugh did you laugh you think it's funny this smart ass right here says the police oh yeah bird you can get back into the jeep son you ain't done nothing wrong y'all too pile back in there y'all ain't done nothing wrong ain't no sense you know paying for this stupid that's that knucklehead off of elm street right there yeah yeah i remember y'all thought he don't believe it but i swear to god i can beat him in basketball you can't shoot you still got to play me he's still waiting for you i've been asking you since i was on elders dude let me tell you something i got two tour league tournament ligaments i will smoke both of y'all y'all could play two on one let me tell you something he's basically you'd be so you'd be on your little skinny ass i'm telling you you haven't seen charles barkley hey dude i'm gonna be honest with you technically i can't see i can't search your jeep and i can't touch y'all and i don't want to i'm not like that okay but i'm gonna tell you something if you hang around like this somebody's gonna somebody's gonna mess with you hey let me ask you this you upset because you did it you upset because you got caught honestly both was disrespectful when i was raised better yeah i'm gonna be honest with you i don't know that i don't know that you i don't know i mean what you did is not breaking the law you didn't realize freedom of speech yes sir but still i mean just to blatantly out just hauling out while we wanted while we're trying to do our job well if that was a dui person i just stopped on the side of the road and got them off the street keep them hitting somebody in your family and killing them you got it you got to look at it you know saying that it all goes around yes sir i mean why do you really feel like that because you really feel like that huh i mean i would be okay if you're just trying to be a badass in front of your boys because you obviously have some pin up frustrations and i'm gonna tell you right now neither one of us done anything to you so tell so tell be honest be honest about it why in the world do you really feel that way because deep down you you have to feel it because that that you know what i've been i've been i've done some crazy stuff in my life not once have i ever said that after admitting that he could not legally search the vehicle and finishing up his lecture officer sanders allowed mr hughes to leave the scene without further incident a few days after the encounter an anonymous citizen raised concerns about the stop to social circle police chief tyrone oliver who reviewed the body camera footage and initially placed officer sanders on leave but made the decision to fire the officer less than a week later the officer had been with the social circle police department for eight years and according to the walton tribune his personnel file showed an oral warning for failure to provide assistance in 2013 a reprimand for conduct in 2014 and a written warning for violating the administrative regulations or departmental rules in 2016. officer sanders immediately appealed the chief's decisions at the city council but city manager adele shirmer upheld his termination and the decision was finalized it is unclear whether any of the individuals involved filed any federal complaints against officer sanders overall officer sanders gets an f for displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of the first amendment and freedom of speech conducting a traffic stop with no legitimate basis and for threatening mr hughes with violence for expressing his opinion not only did the officers admit that nothing mr hughes did was illegal but officer sanders also acknowledged the possibility that mr hughes had formed a negative opinion of police officers and then proceeded to exacerbate and legitimize that opinion by harassing mr hughes it is difficult to understand how officer sanders rationalized his conduct as productive and intimidating and threatening an individual because they have an unfavorable opinion of police officers can only serve to reinforce that opinion the officers continually alluded to the notion that mr hughes should respect them because it is them who ensures his safety and security but the public at large does not owe police officers a higher degree of respect because they chose a career in law enforcement being a police officer is a demanding and often thankless line of work that is essential to the fabric of american society but so is logging and piloting an aircraft which happened to be the top two most dangerous jobs in america with policing ranked at 22nd members of law enforcement do deserve the respect of the public just as much as any other industry that supplies the basic needs of the public but that does not absolve them from the criticisms that ultimately drive progress within the field as chief oliver noted the fox 5 regarding the incident quote in this profession we have to have tough skin people say stuff to us all the time and you got to let it roll off your back and do your job and do it right it is difficult to assign an accurate grade to mr hughes for several reasons but the most prominent one being that he was a minor at the time of this interaction what is clear from the video is that he did not break any laws and no one should fear being stopped and threatened by the police for expressing their opinion of the police it is impossible to speculate on why mr hughes has formed this opinion of police officers but nothing officer sanders did had the potential to change that opinion i commend chief oliver for taking swift action against officer sanders and i commend the social circle town leadership for upholding the chief's decision and setting the precedent that this type of conduct will not be tolerated from its officers this is exactly the type of response that this behavior should generate and i hope that more cities across america will take a page from the social circle handbook let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out my second channel for even more police interaction content [Music] you