(Florida) Supreme Court strikes down loud-stereo law [View all]
Source: Florida Current
Bill Cotterell, 12/13/2012 - 05:36 PM
Driving around with rock or rap blasting from your dashboard may be impolite, even unhealthy for the eardrums of drivers who enjoy cruising to a bone-jarring bass beat, but it is a form of self-expression protected by the First Amendment, the Florida Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
Without dissent, Justice Jorge Labarga wrote that a 2007 state statute making it illegal to crank up the volume so loud that a cop can hear it 25 feet away is overly broad and a form of content-based censorship. The justices did not support an argument that the stricken statute was too vague to let drivers know when their volume was too high.
It started in Pinellas County, where police ticketed Richard Catalano and Alexander Schermerhorn in separate traffic stops. They pleaded not guilty and asked a county judge to dismiss their tickets on grounds that the law was "facially unconstitutional," then switched their pleas to no-contest and appealed. The court accepted their pleas and withheld adjudication.
"It's not a surprise but I'm very pleased by the verdict," said Catalano, an attorney who represented himself and Schermerhorn. The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a "friend of the court" brief in the Supreme Court ...
Read more: http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=30682237
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