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It's your right to flip off someone!

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Smartmom
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So do you have the legal right to be able to flip off someone (you know shoot them a bird)? Are you protected under the First Amendment to give the finger? Well a man in Pittsburgh thinks he has the right and he did and was sited for it. Now he is going to court to challenge it.

Do You Have the Right to Flip Off a Cop?

"So I flipped that person off. And then I looked, and it was a city of Pittsburgh cop in his car right next to me."

That turned out to be police sergeant Brian Elledge, who happened to be passing in the other direction in his cruiser. Elledge whipped around and pulled Hackbart over, citing him under the state's disorderly-conduct law, which bans obscene language and gestures. And here's where the problem lies, says state American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legal director Witold (Vic) Walczak: the middle finger and equivalent swear words are not legally obscene. In fact, courts have consistently ruled that foul language is a constitutionally protected form of expression. A famous 1971 Supreme Court case upheld the right of a young man to enter the Los Angeles County Court House wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words "F___ the Draft." (Read about how disorderly conduct is often a cop's call.)


So do think that you should have the legal right to flip off anyone? If you were sitting on the jury or you were the judge how would you rule?


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missb
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Re: It's your right to flip off someone!

That is so ridiculous, upon reading the entire article this guy didn't even flip the cop off it was somebody else and the cop just happened to see him. Doing it to a cop is showing lack of respect for the law I suppose, but for him to pull him over for doing it to someone else is over the top, just another cop with a God complex from what I can see. I'd let him walk if I was on that jury!

"...There is nothing that isn't great about you" ~~~~ A Friend
Smartmom's picture
From:
Wellington Florida
Smartmom
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Re: It's your right to flip off someone!

Yeah I agree and I guess he has the right. i dunno as a mom I get annoyed at all the cursing and flipping off - especially if there are kids there. I think they need to teach in school how to get along or we end up with a bunch of kids that

I say set the guy free - maybe the judge should flip him off Laughing


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Re: It's your right to flip off someone!

Click "My uncle busted a guy for flipping him off. The guy contested the ticket in court, but the citation was for an illegal hand signal, so it stuck Laughing." haha.

I personally think it's an enormous amount of disrespect to do that to a police officer. I equate it with shouting something profane at him. I would call it disorderly conduct. But that is only my opinion.

It seems as if a person should not get arrested for it. (at least in my county, read the article it's actually good insight...)

David Couper, Madison's former chief of police, cites the law as he remembers it: "In Dane County, you can't be disorderly in your own home and you can't be disorderly because of what you say to a police officer."
~karma: i'm countin on it~

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