« CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT UPDATE - Flag Burning Remains Legal | Main | Beard v. Banks »
80’s music, money grabs and high school nuggets
Last March, Boy George got hit with five days of community service in connection with getting busted for coke possession in his apartment. He hasn’t yet done the community service yet because picking up trash and working with AIDS charities would be “humiliating” and it would all “turn into a media circus.” Well, his judge doesn’t care, telling Boy that he must get his community service done by the end of August, or face jail time. Boy George reportedly responded by asking, “do you really want to jail me.” The judge, much like our readership, was not amused.
Meanwhile, a Michigan man is also trying to keep himself out of jail after a $10 parking fine turned into a freedom of speech battle. When a Michigan man found the ticket on his car last month, he got tweaked at the fact that there was no sign indicating he had done anything wrong. He felt the township was “gaming me, collecting fines without giving people a fair chance to avoid it.” So when he sent in his check, the memo line was filled out to read “Bullshit Money Grab.” Well, the Court wasn’t amused, and hit him with a contempt of court charge. He’ll be in court later today, accompanied by an ACLU attorney, to argue that his remarks, while possibly not the best choice of words, are legal and constitutionally protected by the good ol’ First Amendment.
Finally, a former New Jersey high school student had his 2002 lawsuit tossed out of court. The lawsuit stemmed from the publication of a photo in his high school yearbook where his genitals were somewhat exposed. However, the school did a fast printing halt and recall, and the only presently known copy of the yearbook is the one kept for evidentiary purposes in this litigation. The student ended up suing the board of education, the superintendent, the principal, the vice principal, a teacher, the yearbook advisor, the yearbook’s publisher, and other students who worked on the yearbook. New Jersey’s appellate court has upheld the dismissal of his lawsuit, finding that his privacy was not invaded, that none of the alleged defendants acted with malice, that the student didn’t suffer any emotional distress and that his claims were “without sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion.” In other words, they basically kicked him in his partially visible nuts.
