Opinion ID: 1695502
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: R.A.V. v. CITY OF ST. PAUL

Text: The United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of proscribable speech in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992), where a juvenile was charged with burning a cross in a neighbor's yard in violation of a city ordinance providing: Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. St. Paul, Minn.Legis.Code § 292.02 (1990). The United States Supreme Court held the ordinance invalid because it played favorites: Rather than proscribing certain types of fighting words across the board, the ordinance prohibited such words only in special cases, i.e., only where the words may offend due to race, color, creed, religion or gender. Such a restriction would open the door to government favoritism and protectionism of certain topics and view-points and implicit censorship of disfavored ones... . State v. Stalder, 630 So.2d 1072, 1075 (Fla. 1994). The present statute comports with R.A.V. because the Florida prohibition is not limited to [any] favored topics, but rather cuts across the board evenly. No mention is made of any special topic such as race, color, creed, religion or gender. The targeted activity is proscribed because it is one of the most virulent forms of threats of violence and fighting words and has a tremendous propensity to produce terror and violence. The statute is an even-handed and neutral ban on a manifestly damaging form of expressive activity.