Calling it unconstitutionally “vague and overbroad,” Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker on Thursday blocked a controversial state law that enhances penalties and creates new crimes in protests that turn violent.
Gov. Ron DeSantis championed the measure after nationwide protests focused on racial justice following the death last year of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
The Dream Defenders, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and other organizations alleged in a lawsuit that the law, approved by Republican legislators and signed by DeSantis this spring, is unconstitutionally vague, has a “chilling” effect on First Amendment rights and gives police too much power.
In a 90-page order Thursday, Walker, who has frequently clashed with the DeSantis administration and the GOP-controlled Legislature, granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking DeSantis and three sheriffs from enforcing the law. Walker’s ruling went into effect immediately. The sheriffs had been named as defendants.
“Though plaintiffs claim that they and their members fear that it (the law) will be used against them based on the color of their skin or the messages that they express, its vagueness permits those in power to weaponize its enforcement against any group who wishes to express any message that the government disapproves of,” Walker wrote. “Thus, while there may be some Floridians who welcome the chilling effect that this law has on the plaintiffs in this case, depending on who is in power, next time it could be their ox being gored.”
The case focuses in large part on a section of the law that creates a new definition of “riot.” Walker found that the definition “both fails to put Floridians of ordinary intelligence on notice of what acts it criminalizes and encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, making this provision vague to the point of unconstitutionality.”
DeSantis made the “Combating Public Disorder” law one of his chief priorities for the legislative session that ended in April. The importance of the legislation, strongly endorsed by House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson, was illustrated by the measure’s designation as “HB 1.”
The governor, a Harvard Law School graduate, on Thursday told reporters he anticipates Walker’s ruling will be overturned by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I guarantee you we will win that on appeal,” DeSantis said, adding, “just like we won almost anything out of Tallahassee on appeal, that’s just kind of the way the cookie crumbles.”
But the plaintiffs lauded Walker’s decision, saying in a prepared statement that the ruling will “greatly contribute to the safety of Black organizers” and others affected by the “unjust law.”
The law “effectively criminalizes our constitutional right to peacefully protest and puts anyone — particularly Black people demonstrating against police violence — at risk of unlawful arrest, injury, and even death. This targeting of protesters is shameful and directly contradicts our Constitution,” the statement said.
Walker’s lengthy ruling shot down arguments made by DeSantis’ lawyers, who maintained in a June 2 motion that the lawsuit is based on “unfounded, misleading, and conclusory allegations of constitutional violations.” In addition to DeSantis, the lawsuit named as defendants the sheriffs in Jacksonville and Broward and Leon counties, where the plaintiffs organize protests.
Much of Walker’s decision centered on the new definition of riot, which the chief judge last month ordered lawyers to diagram grammatically.
“A person commits a riot if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more persons, acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct, resulting in: (a) Injury to another person; (b) Damage to property; or (c) Imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property,” the law says.
The law makes it a third-degree felony for anyone “found guilty of a riot, or inciting or encouraging a riot.” People arrested for violations of the anti-rioting provision must be held without bail until their first appearance before a judge.
The definition of riot “through its ambiguity, chills speech and eviscerates that essential breathing space,” Walker wrote Thursday.
“The law is overbroad. Accordingly, I conclude that plaintiffs have established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits as to their overbreadth claim,” he added.
Plaintiffs argued that the law puts peaceful protesters at risk of being arrested for the actions of counter-protesters or attendees who turn violent. Walker agreed.
“If this court does not enjoin the statute’s enforcement, the lawless actions of a few rogue individuals could effectively criminalize the protected speech of hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding Floridians,” he wrote.
The chief judge also made clear that his decision does not stop DeSantis and the three sheriffs from quelling unrest.
“An injunction preventing the defendants from using the new definition of ‘riot’ does not prevent them from suppressing riots; rather they merely cannot employ the new definition of a riot, and must rely instead on the common-law definition, as they have in the past,” Walker wrote, adding that the defendants “may still protect private property and public safety using the numerous tools at their disposal.”
In the introduction to his 90-page ruling, Walker laid out a brief history of civil-rights leaders’ desegregation efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In 1956, two Florida A&M University students, Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, were arrested for “inciting a riot” after they sat in the “whites-only” section of a city bus in Tallahassee, Walker noted. Five years later, nine clergy members were arrested for their involvement in trying to force a restaurant to serve Black customers, the judge said.
Florida’s anti-riot laws at the time “were used to suppress activities threatening the state’s Jim Crow status quo,” he wrote.
The judge returned to the history lesson in his conclusion to Thursday’s decision.
“Though what’s past is prologue, this court need not give it any power beyond providing context for the case before it now. A critical part of that context … is that following Ms. Jakes’, Ms. Patterson’s, and the 1961 Freedom Riders’ arrests under Florida’s anti-riot laws, the rule of law ultimately prevailed,” Walker wrote. “And so too, with this court, the rule of law prevails.”
—Dara Kam, News Service of Florida, with Jim Turner.
Mark says
If the police had their way, no one would commit a crime ever. Like seriously get real.
Dennis says
Everything is political. Right to the federal judges and all the way up to the Supreme Court. Nothing but politicians in black robes. That’s why they always shop fir certain courts. Sad
The dude says
I guess Guv Deathsantis skipped the day they were teaching constitooshunal law at that fancy law skool he went to…
Mike Cocchiola says
This law was clearly intended to intimidate people from protesting the actions of right-wing Florida or of a Republican-led federal government. It did not protect innocent people from extremist provocateurs like the Proud Boys. It gave law enforcement broad legal license to decide when a protest is a riot and who to arrest.
This law moves Florida and America closer to authoritarianism. We’ll have to hope for democracy’s sake that the injunction is upheld.
Jimbo99 says
“Calling it unconstitutionally “vague and overbroad,” Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker on Thursday blocked a controversial state law that enhances penalties and creates new crimes in protests that turn violent.”
Where to start with this stupidity. Number one, the violence & destruction are not new crimes, they are merely providing clarification on existing crimes that have always been crimes that involve violence & destruction. All those fires that were started in those protests, that’s arson, always has and always will be, a protest or cause never changed that fact. We’ve had a couple of arsonists her in Palm Coast in the last year or so. Those individuals needed help to change their anti-social behavior. If they are not arrestable as criminals, getting them the help they need will be an endless debate with anyone that refuses to acknowledge that they are criminals that are doing that. We all see what it takes to get the domestic violence or child abuse action set in motion ? The same holds with protests that become destructive & violent. Decriminalizing that is the wrong path. Rioting & looting, a protest nor cause ever changed that from grand larceny or destruction of property at the very least. And then there has always been the castle and even the extended castle doctrines that neither a protest not cause ever changed the fact that violence & destruction is a threat to one’s life. Sorry to inform you, but on my property, your cause or protest is a threat to the safety & security of my life, my home, my right to pursue liberty & happiness. And if my mailbox being damaged from non-protest activities without anyone stepping up to repair that, this nonsense of reversing a good set of ground rules for a protest to be clarified as to what will & won’t be tolerated is a step in the wrong direction. If Joe Biden was on board with it, the protestors really wouldn’t have an issue with it, same as the Mark Walker in this case. If the protesting that occurred in 2020 and prior isn’t a crime, needed clarification, needed enhanced penalties to deter violence & property destruction, one really has to wonder why Jan 6, 2021 and a DC protest that turned violent & destructive with looting would even be considered an insurgency. Police & National Guard were required for that over the reading of a election result that could’ve been done thru virtual conferencing. Palm Coast/Flagler county didn’t have the same level level of destruction & violence. The sanity of any protest was sane, as opposed to insane. I would’ve had no problem with any protestor or pseudo-protestor that was violent, destructive, criminally larcenous being arrested, that transcends race or gender. With any of this where race or gender becomes the excuse, we always have a criminal first that has a set of descriptors that are more identifying in their individual case. I get what FCSO is saying, they go after the criminal first and everyone gets their fair share of innocent until proven guilty. They are caught & charged as criminals, not a specific race or gender.
Sheila Zinkerman says
DeSantis’s vague Protest Law may crush a kid’s dream of changing the world for the better if the injunction is lifted through appeal. Nonviolent protests are essential for ordinary people to reconcile injustice; the protests must continue without any fear of an unjust felony charge against the protesters. In an Oxford University Press study, author Anne Nassauer published a paper that outlines how to keep protests peaceful; “Boredom is the Answer.” This is the best way to keep DeSantis out of the protester’s lane.
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/mobile/view/10.1093/oso/9780190922061.001.0001/oso-9780190922061
Keeping protests nonviolent is essential to challenging oppressors like DeSantis. They can also galvanize communities to make positive changes. In fact, studies have shown that even small, nonviolent protests can affect measurable change.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world. Stop Ramrod-Ron from shoving any future madcap laws down our throats. Here are some of them: HB 529 Mandatory Moment of Silence, HB 7045 school scholarship scheme using public money for mostly religious schools, SB 90 making it harder for people to vote, HB 259 legalized guns in churches that share property with schools, SB 1028 ban on transgendered female athletes from competing in girls sports, SB 2006 ban on mandatory vaccines, and Executive Order 21-175 Parents Bill-of-Rights, mandatory mask ban (blocked and on appeal.) All of these laws were signed by DeSantis to curry favor from his base to win elections in 2022 and beyond. Vote DeSantis out.
Linda Hagman says
If you read DeathSantis’ law—Trump would have been arrested if he staged his “coup” on January 6th in Florida.
A.j says
Thank God for the injunction. How long will it last? If it is overturned the police will kill at will especially if you are a person of color. and a White Karen call and say I look suspecious the cops will probably gun me down and be justified doing so. In my view we are going to be a police state soon. People of color we need to wake up and get ready, these hste groups are waiting for a few more laws to cause people of color blood to pave the roads of the white man. They will probably lynch a black man at the lie of a white woman. It has happened before will probably happen again.
Sherry says
@ Linda. . . “Technically” you are absolutely correct. trump would have broken the DeSantis (illegal) law if he had held his insurrection riot in Florida. But, that law would NOT have been “enforced” against trump, or any other criminal activity by a white supremacist or extreme right winged mob.
The FDLE would “look the other way”. . . because, this outrageous legislation was written specifically to stop any kind of protest by people of color.
Sherry says
Right On Shelia! You have connected just a few of the dots that define the much bigger horrific agenda of DeSantis and Florida’s Republican legislature. THANKS SO MUCH!