Calling Police 'Pigs' Lands Teen in Jail

Usnews.com A Tennessee teenager allegedly squealed “pigs!” at police officers Friday and wound up being the one confined to a pen. The First Amendment generally protects such insults but the pig-caller made a critical error, legal experts say. William Reece, 19, was riding in a Honda Accord traveling at most 40 miles per hour when he cracked a rear passenger door and yelled the insult at officers performing a traffic stop, according to a police report. The unamused patrolmen with the Newport Police Department caught up with the car and arrested Reece for disorderly conduct "due to creating a hazardous condition that served no legitimate purpose." The arrest report does not allege use of alcohol or drugs and it’s unclear if Reece, who posted $500 bond the same day, agrees the facts are as alleged, particularly that he opened the door rather than rolled down its window. But if he did make the less conventional choice and opened the door, experts say, the arrest probably was constitutional, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech rights. “If the arrest had occurred for shouting through an open window, it probably would have been unconstitutional,” says Vanderbilt University Law School professor Christopher Slobogin. But, Slobogin says, “opening a door while a car is moving is probably a traffic violation” and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1996 Whren v. United States decision therefore allows for such a stop...