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anti protest law
'A Win for Civil Rights': Federal Judge Blocks Florida GOP's Anti-Protest Law
The court's decision, said a coalition of civil rights groups, "serves as a powerful reminder that such unjust and unconstitutional efforts cannot stand."
Sep 10, 2021
Civil liberties and racial justice advocates are celebrating after a federal judge ruled Thursday that Florida's anti-protest law is unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable.
In his 90-page decision (pdf) granting civil rights groups' request for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the law--passed by Florida's GOP-controlled House and Senate and signed in April by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in response to demonstrations against police violence and racial injustice--violates rights to free speech and peaceful assembly as well as due process protections.
\u201cVICTORY: Federal court blocks key portion of Gov. DeSantis' anti-protest law, which effectively criminalizes our constitutional right to peacefully protest and puts anyone at risk of unlawful arrest, injury, and even death. Today is a win for civil rights.\nhttps://t.co/10BsBdjSyU\u201d— ACLU of Florida (@ACLU of Florida) 1631216602
The ACLU of Florida explained that a key provision of H.B. 1 "redefines the crime of 'riot' and imposes harsh penalties for those arrested under the law," including peaceful protesters.
Alluding to Florida's history of slapping anti-segregationists with baseless charges of incitement and rioting during the Jim Crow era, Walker enjoined DeSantis and three Florida sheriffs from enforcing the riot definition established by Section 15 of the law.
"If this court does not enjoin the statute's enforcement," Walker wrote, "the lawless actions of a few rogue individuals could effectively criminalize the protected speech of hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding Floridians."
The court's ruling came in response to a motion filed in July by the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU of Florida, the Community Justice Project, and private attorneys on behalf of Dream Defenders, the Black Collective, Chainless Change, Black Lives Matter Alliance of Broward, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, and the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.
In May, the same plaintiffs filed a lawsuit contending that Florida's anti-protest law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by repressing legally protected activities and criminalizing those who advocate for social change.
Following Thursday's ruling, the coalition said in a joint statement that the "decision enjoining enforcement of a key provision of H.B. 1 will greatly contribute to the safety of Black organizers and others affected by this unjust law."
"H.B. 1 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," the groups continued. "This targeting of protesters is shameful and directly contradicts our Constitution. We are glad the court has agreed to suspend enforcement of this key provision while we continue to advocate to ensure that protesters in Florida can safely exercise their right to speak out against injustice."
\u201cIn May, LDF, ACLU of Florida, and Community Justice Project filed a federal lawsuit challenging #HB1, which was designed to chill Floridians\u2019 First Amendment right to free speech and peaceful assembly in the wake of demonstrations against police violence\nhttps://t.co/K8SrRBEQaP\u201d— Legal Defense Fund (@Legal Defense Fund) 1631209660
While DeSantis and Republicans in the Florida legislature presented H.B. 1 as a response to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, the measure was first proposed by DeSantis last September in reaction to the nationwide marches that erupted after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May of 2020.
"H.B. 1 was passed as a direct response to racial justice protests in 2020 and appears designed to target those who protest police violence," the civil rights coalition said Thursday. "Among other concerning provisions, the law risks criminalizing peaceful protest and shields those who injure or kill protestors--for example, by ramming their vehicles into protestors--from civil penalties."
GOP lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 bills this year to stifle dissent and criminalize people who demonstrate against police violence, fossil fuel pipelines, and other injustices. In addition to Florida's H.B. 1, punitive and discriminatory anti-protest laws have been passed in seven other states: Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
"As states around the country threaten to pass similar legislation," the coalition added, the court's "decision serves as a powerful reminder that such unjust and unconstitutional efforts cannot stand."
NPRreported Thursday that DeSantis plans to challenge Walker's order at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Rights Groups Fight Back Against 'Punitive and Unjust' Anti-Protest Law in Florida
"H.B. 1 is undemocratic legislation that has stifled our constitutional rights by obstructing the activity of Black community organizers. H.B.1 must be repealed, abolished, or simply outlawed."
Jul 14, 2021
A coalition of civil rights groups on Wednesday filed a motion in a Florida federal court seeking to block the state's recently enacted anti-protest law--which critics say targets racial justice demonstrators while letting right-wing protesters off the hook.
"We use protest as a vehicle for change and not only does this law silence our voices, but it puts our lives in danger."
--Nailah Summers, Dream Defenders
The ACLU of Florida, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), and Community Justice Project (CJP), with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP serving as counsel, filed a motion for preliminary injunction (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in a bid to block parts of H.B. 1, the so-called "anti-riot" bill introduced in the wake of last year's Black Lives Matter protests and signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in April.
The injunction was filed on behalf of Dream Defenders, the Black Collective, Chainless Change, Black Lives Matter Alliance of Broward, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, and the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.
"Among other things, the law risks criminalizing peaceful protest, shields those who injure or kill protestors (for example by ramming their vehicles into protestors) from civil penalties, discourages people from protesting, and otherwise infringes on First Amendment rights," the organizations filing the motion said in a statement. "The law was passed as a direct response to racial justice protests in 2020, and appears designed to target those who protest against police violence."
\u201cBREAKING: We've filed a motion for preliminary injunction with @ACLUFL and @cjpmiami to block key portions of Florida's anti-protest law, H.B.1. The law risks criminalizing peaceful protest and provides a shield for those who kill or injure protestors. https://t.co/OMA85sSiXt\u201d— Legal Defense Fund (@Legal Defense Fund) 1626286821
Critics argued that H.B. 1's civil legal immunity provision endangers lives and would have protected the neo-Nazi who murdered anti-racism protester Heather Heyer with his car in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.
H.B. 1 is but one of scores of Republican-sponsored anti-protest bills introduced in dozens of states over the past year. As of late June, eight states have passed such laws.
The same groups that filed Wednesday's motion also sued DeSantis and other state officials in May over H.B. 1.
"This law has changed the landscape for what it means to organize and create safer conditions for our communities in Florida," said Nailah Summers, co-executive director of Dream Defenders, in a statement. "Protest has always been a vital tool for accountability for our public officials. We use protest as a vehicle for change and not only does this law silence our voices, but it puts our lives in danger."
"H.B. 1 is a punitive and unjust law created to silence communities, but protect vigilantes."
--Krystina Francois, The Black Collective
Krystina Francois, co-founder and board member of the Black Collective, said that "H.B. 1 is a punitive and unjust law created to silence communities, but protect vigilantes."
"Black Floridians deserve more than a law that continues to suppress their voices," asserted Francois. "Our constitutional right to assemble peacefully and demand justice from a society that would rather criminalize us than uplift our quality of life is necessary."
Ben Frazier, president of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, said that "H.B. 1 targets Black organizers, and their allies who stood up courageously to say 'Black Lives Matter!'"
"We protested against police brutality and against social, racial, and economic injustice," Frazier continued. "The enactment of H.B. 1 has frightened peaceful protesters from exercising their constitutional right to assemble and protest. Many of our supporters have declined to participate while expressing a fear of unfair arrests by law enforcement officers and the fear of potential bodily harm by vigilantes."
"The First Amendment, which guarantees our rights to voice our demands, is being muffled, strangled, and suffocated," he added. "H.B. 1 is undemocratic legislation that has stifled our constitutional rights by obstructing the activity of Black community organizers. H.B. 1 must be repealed, abolished, or simply outlawed."
Underscoring what critics of H.B. 1 say is the law's discriminatory intent, the editors of the Miami Herald on Tuesday published an editorial decrying the hypocritical leniency shown to Cuban-American demonstrators and their supporters who blocked a Miami expressway on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with anti-government protesters in Cuba.
\u201cFL Gov. DeSantis created an un-American anti-riot law in the wake of George Floyd demonstrations. It makes blocking a highway a federal offense, but the law hasn\u2019t been enforced among other protests. It was created as a means to target Black people! https://t.co/RJGFdhrAVo\u201d— Ben Crump (@Ben Crump) 1626291061
According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "Police encouraged people to disperse--to no avail." People at "SOS Cuba" demonstrations in Tampa and Orlando also blocked major thoroughfares and ignored police orders to disperse.
There were no arrests reported at the Miami protest. Three men were reportedly arrested in Tampa for assaulting or resisting officers, while one man was reportedly arrested in Orlando for disorderly conduct. There were no reported arrests for violations of H.B. 1.
Addressing DeSantis' dodging of reporters' questions about the uneven application of H.B. 1, the Herald editors wrote: "Honestly, we would have been more impressed if he had just responded: 'Nah, the Miami-Dade demonstrators seeking human rights in Cuba have nothing to fear from my anti-riot law. We created it to subdue Black folks seeking human rights in the United States.'"
\u201c"Let\u2019s be clear here, the only thing that changed ... are the demands and who is organizing them. When it was Black Lives Matter, DeSantis vowed to throw the book at them ... when it was Cubans, it became politically inconvenient to enforce the same law."\n https://t.co/xHdv14zHHk\u201d— Arturo Dominguez \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf2 (@Arturo Dominguez \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf2) 1626274493
Writing for Latino Rebels, Thomas Kennedy said: "Let's be clear here, the only thing that changed in terms of the protests are the demands and who is organizing them. When it was Black Lives Matter protests, DeSantis vowed to throw the book at them and condemned them profusely but when it was Cuban protestors, it became politically inconvenient to enforce the very same law he advocated for months ago."
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The Republican War on Protests
Republican state legislators across 34 states have introduced more than 80 bills this year that criminalize protesting or protect those who harm protesters.
Jun 11, 2021
A black SUV, part of a Cubans for Trump caravan, rams into Jonathan Gartrelle, a Black Lives Matter activist at a small protest in downtown Miami on July 18, 2020. Video shows Gartrelle landing hard on the hood of the vehicle, then sliding off. The SUV speeds away.
The man who drove into Gartrelle, an unidentified Trump supporter, is the one who's pressing charges--against Gartrelle.
The driver claims Gartrelle stole a flag from his SUV. Police arrested Gartrelle a couple of days later, charging him with two felonies--one for escape and one for strong arm robbery--as well as misdemeanor counts of resisting an officer and obstructing a public street.
The law also makes it easier to charge entire groups of protesters for the actions of a single individual.
These charges are "hilariously overbroad," says Alex Saiz, Gartrelle's attorney and director of legal services for the Florida Justice Center. "As you read the arrest form, you think, 'This is nonsense.' "
Gartrelle is one of more than 14,000 demonstrators who were arrested at anti-racism protests during summer 2020.
Eventually, all of the charges against Gartrelle were dropped (except the misdemeanor for petty theft, still unresolved because of court delays related to Covid-19). But a new Florida law, part of a surge of draconian anti-protest state bills, puts future protesters at risk of far worse outcomes.
Signed into law in April, Florida's HB 1, the Combating Public Disorder bill, sets harsher penalties (and escalates some misdemeanor charges to felonies) for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments. It also creates a new misdemeanor called "mob intimidation" and protects police budgets from cuts.
Dream Defenders, a youth-led, Miami-based abolitionist group (and member of the Movement for Black Lives), spearheaded an all-out campaign against HB 1 earlier this year. The organization sent tens of thousands of emails, canvassed, phone banked and hosted events to raise awareness about the "censorship bill," says Nailah Summers, interim co-director of Dream Defenders.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls HB 1 the "strongest anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement measure in the country." But according to Max Gaston, staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, "HB 1 is not an anti-riot law. It is an anti-protest law that suppresses First Amendment rights by criminalizing peaceful protest and silencing government dissent."
Under HB 1, Gaston says, "virtually every major demonstration in the last several years, from the Women's March to the March for Our Lives, would have involved a heightened level of danger from police and counter-protesters."
Law enforcement advocacy groups (particularly police unions) have lobbied hard for the new legislation--which generally increases discretion for police, prosecutors and judges-- in at least 14 states, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of the bills' sponsors.
"[HB 1] will almost inevitably result in more arrests, felony convictions and debilitating legal financial obligations," Gaston says. For example, the law "effectively authorizes police officers to decide in every instance what constitutes a riot, what conduct is criminal under the new law, and who can be arrested for merely assembling to highlight and discuss issues of public importance."
The law also makes it easier to charge entire groups of protesters for the actions of a single individual. If someone smashes a window during a protest, for example, any nearby demonstrator could face felony charges, Saiz says. This element of the law arguably creates an incentive for law enforcement to use unethical tactics to disrupt peaceful assemblies, such as planting provocateurs in crowds--a tactic wielded against civil rights groups in the past. From the FBI's COINTELPRO to the murder of Fred Hampton and countless other freedom fighters, law enforcement has long worked to protect white supremacy and destroy Black movements.
As for the driver who hit Gartrelle, new immunity protections from civil lawsuits for drivers who injure or kill protesters appear in bills passed in Florida, Oklahoma and Iowa, and have been introduced in Missouri and Nevada. Oklahoma's version even includes criminal immunity in some cases, which "emboldens those seeking to harm protesters," according to Gaston.
The new protection against civil liability comes in the wake of a number of instances of vehicle weaponization by people who align with the Right. Most infamously, in 2017, racial justice activist Heather Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi driver in Charlottesville, Va., who also injured 19 other protesters.
According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Republican state legislators across 34 states have introduced more than 80 bills in the 2021 legislative season that criminalize protesting or grant civil immunity to people who harm protesters. Many of the proposed bills use language that copies elements of the Florida legislation. Some draw from a 2017 model bill drafted by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council at the behest of fossil fuel companies, the so-called Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. A response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, it set a precedent for severe criminal penalties against peaceful protesters.
Some of the new anti-protest bills extend beyond criminal punishment and cut basic benefits to people convicted of protest-related charges. A bill proposed in Minnesota, home of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, would make people convicted of a crime during a protest ineligible for student loans, food stamps, rental assistance and unemployment relief. SB 34, a Republican bill proposed in Indiana, would prohibit people convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment or elected office.
"The idea that the George Floyd protests were somehow so awful that we need to fundamentally change the way we see riots and protest is just complete fearmongering," Saiz says, adding that the intention is to create a chilling effect on free speech.
These anti-protest bills also come in the wake of an election cycle that saw record voter turnout and extremely close races-- most significantly in Georgia, where President Joe Biden won by a slim margin and two previously Republican-held Senate seats flipped in a run-off.
By creating new felony charges for protest, these bills threaten the constitutional right to vote. The vast majority of states disenfranchise people who have felony convictions--who are disproportionately Black--for some time. HB 1 creates "a substantial risk of disenfranchising more Black and Brown Florida voters," says Gaston, as citizens convicted of a felony are only eligible to vote after completing their sentence and paying often debilitating fines and fees. In 11 states, mostly in the South, an individual convicted of a felony can lose their voting rights indefinitely. In 18 states, people on parole or probation are barred from voting.
"Those wishing to exercise their First Amendment rights to assemble and protest" have no choice but to be "mindful of the risks HB 1 creates," Gaston says.
Organizers and activists around the country are girding themselves for the fight ahead.
In Missouri, a coalition of civil and human rights organizations, including the Organization for Black Struggle, came together in March to protest the state's anti-protest bill. In Oklahoma, dozens of demonstrators occupied the Capitol in April as the governor signed an anti-protest bill.
In some ways, Saiz says, the passage of HB 1 has galvanized demonstrators in Florida. "They feel like the government is actively trying to silence them," he says. "They feel like they have even more to protest. We've got clients who are planning protests of the anti-protest law."
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the ACLU of Florida and the Community Justice Project have also filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida's law on behalf of a number of Black-led organizations, including Dream Defenders. The lawsuit argues that HB 1 violates the First and 14th Amendments by chilling protected speech, criminalizing protest and specifically targeting Black organizers.
Promises Nailah Summers, "We're putting our heart and soul into stopping this racist law."
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