Huge win in 8th Circuit Halloween Sign Case
Congratulations to registrants in the State of Missouri and their attorney, Janice Bellucci (ACSOL), who prevailed in the State and Police Chief’s appeal of a lower court ruling finding a Halloween Sign law, requiring registrants to post a sign at their residence on Halloween, to be compelled speech and a violation of the First Amendment.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded, “In short, we agree with the district court that the sign mandate compels speech and, thus, is unconstitutional unless it can survive strict scrutiny… there was no convincing evidence presented that [the signs] add anything to advance the goal of protecting children… there is insufficient evidence to support the State’s assertion that the sign mandate is the least restrictive means of achieving its goals [of protecting children]… Accordingly, the sign mandate burdens more speech than necessary and fails strict scrutiny”.
You can read the opinion here: 8th Circuit Halloween Sign Order
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Great News. The Registry will one day collapse under its own added overbearing and overreaching restrictions. Maybe there is something in this ruling that we can use to re-challenge the DL branding. Its in my pocket, how is that protecting children? I know its like comparing Fruit to meat but neither protect children; signs or DL markings.
Now if we (as a whole) can get the registry to be granted compelled speech, we could rejoice and have a huge going away party.
Now back to reality.
The registry as a whole won’t be considered compelled speech so long as it is law enforcement (rather than registrants themselves) that are responsible for maintaining the registry webpages, mailing out flyers, posting Facebook alerts, etc.
In all actuality however the information that we are required to give law enforcement could be considered compelled speech. Every on line account? Every vehicle that we get behind the wheel of, If they know where we reside and have a phone number for us that should be sufficient. So there is compelled speech in the registry.
The same should apply to those driver’s license indicators we have to use.
There was a similar case a couple years ago in the 7th circuit, a case from georgia
11th Circuit, which includes Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.
11th circuit….my mistake. The case was out of the 11th circuit in Georgia
The fact that states keep trying this and it keeps getting shot down tells you a lot about the states. The definition of insanity and all that.
Some good news.