Was it legal to rant against trick or treating via loudspeaker during halloween? I went trick or treating with my goddaughter for Halloween. During it we came across a house where the owner of the house were 'preaching' about the evils of Halloween, I don't recall the details but something about not suffering a witch to live means not dressing up as one and that it would all lead to sacrificing a virgin, and for the record that last part is not hyperbole, I remember it as the highlight of their speech. They had set up a loudspeaker to project what they were saying, they could be heard from 2-3 houses down. On our way back we passed someone who claimed to be an off duty cop informing them they had to stop. The cop specifically was saying that they were upsetting young children with some of the things they were saying and thus had to stop. I was wondering about the legality of the action. I realize that the speech itself was protected within limits. I imagine the use of a loud speaker may push the action into disturbing the peace due to being too loud? From what I heard though the supposed cop never mentioned the volume of the loudspeaker, he was focusing on verbal depictions that were upsetting to young children. So were they illegal for use of loudspeaker, and separate from that was it illegal due to the use of disturbing mental imagery inflicted on young children?
Short Answer It was probably legal to rant and probably illegal to shut down the person doing the ranting. Analysis Generally speaking, "content based" restrictions on speech are very limited, although "time, place and manner" restrictions are allowed if they are reasonable and not a backdoor way to restrict content, under the First Amendment. The "time, place and manner" exception derives from the case Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569 (1941) (summarize here), which held that municipalities could charge fees for parade permits even if that imposed a content neutral burden on speech in the interest of maintaining a peaceful situation in which order is maintained. Some leading cases on the subject are cited here where the professor discussing them engages in some useful analysis: Content-neutral justifications for regulating speech are, however, still subject to overbreadth challenges, as demonstrated by the recent case of Watchtower Bible &amp; Tract Society v Stratton (2002). In Watchtower, the Court struck down on an 8 to 1 vote the ordinance of an Ohio town that required all door-to-door advocates of causes, as well as commercial solicitors, to obtain a permit from the mayor's office. The town had attempted to justifiy its ordinance as a fraud-prevention and privacy-protection measure, but Justice Stevens wrote for the Court that the ordinance was "offensive not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society." The Court found the alleged interests in protecting residential privacy and preventing fraud insufficient to justify such a sweeping restriction. The Court noted that the ordinance reached religious proselyting and anonymous political speech (where fraud is not an issue) and that residential privacy could be adequately protected by another Stratton law that allowed homeowners to place themselves on a "Do Not Solicit" law and then post "no solicitation" signs on their property. The Stratton case strongly suggests that the Court would find a carefully drafted "Do Not Call" law applying to telemarketers to be constitutional. Two of our cases concern the state's interest in preventing disturbances of the public peace that might be caused by controversial speech. In Feiner (1951), the Court upheld the conviction of a speaker who refused three requests from a police officer to stop speaking after members of a street corner audience threatened to attack the speaker. Dissenting justices saw the decision as an outrage, suggesting that the police had an obligation to protect the speaker and arrest those who might try to assault him. (In Forsyth County (1992), the Court struck down an ordinance that allowed county officials to set permit fees for rallies and parades based on how much police protection was estimated to be required. The Court noted that such a permit system disproportionately burdens unpopular speech (allowing a "heckler's veto"). One wonders, after Forsyth County, whether Feiner remains good law.) For example, most municipalities have noise ordinances that set a decibel limit on noise for a particular time of day (usually quieter at night), and might even require a permit to use a loud speaker in a public area, on the content neutral basis of how loud the sound is (classic "time, place and manner"), rather than the content. The legal boundaries on using a "disturbing the peace" ordinance to limit troubling content are quite strict (the classic exception being shouting "fire" in a crowded theater or otherwise inciting a riot or provoking a fight). This particular example would implicate not only freedom of speech but also freedom of religion and so would be subject to particularly strict scrutiny to content based restrictions. It would probably be unconstitutional to shut down the speaker because it was upsetting to young children under some more general statute or ordinance, although one can imagine circumstances where a narrowly tailored ordinance or law might be held constitutional. For example, there are valid restrictions on sex and violence in publicly broadcast television content during hours when children typically watch television, but those restrictions do not extend to cable TV or streaming services. Two of the leading U.S. Supreme Court cases are Ginsberg v. New York (1968), reasoning that material can be obscene as to children (“harmful to minors”) but not as to adults. Society simply doesn’t want harmful material to fall into the hands of minors. However, the government has also attempted to regulate material even beyond the expression prohibited under a harmful-to-minors law. This is the area of indecent expression. And, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) that the government could fine a radio station for playing a George Carlin comedic monologue containing profanity during daytime hours. But, neither of these harmful to minors cases involved prostelytizing for minority religious views, which is less content neutral than limitations on profanity which is as much about the manner of the presentation of the content as the content itself. In any case, it is almost certain that there is no narrowly tailored statute or ordinance that actually exists in this particular situation. Remedies Indeed, shutting down the speaker while claiming to be an off duty police officer might very well constitute an intentional violation of civil rights of the speaker under color of state law under 42 USC Section 1983, in circumstances where clearly established first amendment law prohibits that conduct a denies the officer qualified immunity from liability. Even if there were content neutral ordinances that prohibited this content, in this situation, the clear basis for the action was not content neutral and did not refer to any content neutral limitation such as a noise ordinance. The damages would probably be nominal or modest, but the prevailing party would be entitled to attorneys' fees and costs and quite likely to injunctive relief against further attempts to limit speech in this manner.
First off, you cannot booby trap your property, period. It is both illegal and tortious. But, as you noted, there are already questions/answers that deal with this issue. Sure enough, if the police get a no-knock search warrant, that in and of itself is the Court order allowing entry by any means necessary. When the officers, there by right of law, breach the outer perimeter and stop at the warnings, they will not be seeking any other court orders to have you allow them "safe entry". Their warrant gives them all the right they need, as probable cause of crime and violent intent or intent to destroy evidence was already presented to a judge. If, in real life, you actually put up signage or state explicitly that they're being forewarned that you intend to harm, trap, maim, or otherwise make it unsafe to enter; or that doing so will result in an attempt to destroy evidence, that is something they have already assumed (hence the seeking and granting of the no-knock vs. a regular search warrant). However, the signs in and of themselves are not protected speech, but rather overt threats, and that would put you in a very precarious position indeed. If the police get a "no knock" warrant (the most invasive, difficult to get warrants, whereby there is a grave risk of destruction of evidence or injury to persons), the police will ensure they have safe passage &ndash; they've come prepared for dangerous entry long before your signs, but once they see them, you could rest assured they will take them as they are intended: as a direct threat to their safety, and they will deploy a SWAT or other heavily armed entry team (who is usually there anyway for these dangerous entries). You could expect things like smoke/out canister and teargas, flash bangs, and heavily armed and well armored officers attempting to force you from your dwelling. Presumably, if you need to disarm traps to escape the situation, they can enter. Assuming you're home when they invade with chemical weapons, whether you come out or not, they will force you to disarm whatever booby trapping you may have in place that may destroy evidence, likely walking you in as their human shield in the event you're lying about any dangerous ones. That is probably your best case scenario. They may just decide to throw you through the perimeter once they get their hands on you, just to see what happens! If you don't exit and are home or if you are lucky enough to be out, the bomb squad, ATF, and SWAT will converge on your property in less than typical means. Because from your warning they can assume some incendiary or explosive device exists, bringing it into the jurisdiction of other agencies. If they cannot disarm the trap, they would send a robot in first to set it off, or cut through your roof, or knock down a wall &ndash; whatever it takes to get in without using a typical means of ingress/egress, so as not to chance your trap. Regardless, you can rest assured that they will get in, and you will pay for the trap you set for law enforcement. Further, to whatever charges you'd have been faced with from evidence flowing from the original warrant will now be added additional charges like attempted murder of a peace officer; if you have any roommates or known associates: conspiracy to do those things; attempted destruction of evidence, criminal interference with a police investigation ... all at a minimum. If anyone is actually harmed, your signage offers you no shield from criminal or tort liability, and you will be lucky to live through the experience once they get their hands on you. Police tend to not like being the targets of intentional maiming, dismemberment or death. You have to understand that, according to this hypothetical, you are intentionally trying to harm law enforcement, or destroy evidence of your dangerous criminal activity. These are not invaders, or intruders according to the law; they are the people whose job it is to enforce the laws, collect the evidence (if you weren't getting arrested pursuant to the fruits of the warrant, you certainly would be at that point). The signs themselves would make excellent exhibits in the coming case of State v. you. BTW: The only reason they have left John Joe Gray alone is that he knows the Henderson County Sheriff Ronny Brownlow, who has been told that the ATF, FBI, and State SWAT, would all be happy to enter and get or kill Mr. Gray if need be. Since the Sheriff never filed any federal charges, and has determined that he doesn't want to breach (and it's in his jurisdiction to determine this), the Sheriff, aware that Gray's entire family is holed up in the "compound", decided it's not worth going in. It's as well known as it is anomalous. When the police want in, and have the right to get in, they will get in. That Sheriff just decided it's not worthwhile.
It is legal. What would be illegal is for a public school to promote or inhibit a religion. You can teach all sorts of facts that touch on religion (millennia of Western history) and you can e.g. survey the major religions of the worlds as a cultural phenomenon. You can use circumlocutions or proper names. It's not illegal to confess to having personal beliefs. This is about public schools, which is an arm of the government. A person who is in a school, for example a student, is not prohibited from promoting or demoting a religion, therefore a student who clearly and openly advocates the Pastafarian faith is not to be sanctioned, except insofar as the conduct is objectively disruptive. This is because the student is clearly not acting as an agent of a government institution. Things are a little murky when it comes to teachers and guest speakers. Teachers do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter the classroom. Here is a summary of pertinent court rulings. The main principle that comes from such cases is that school districts can direct teachers to refrain from certain actions when there is a reasonable belief that the actions would run afoul of the Establishment Clause. Individual teachers have been ordered to not engage in silent reading of prayers in school (Roberts v. Madigan). Case law on guest lecturers is probably close to zero, since guest lecturers don't have the same kind of property right to be at the school expressing themselves as teachers do.
In most US States (probably all of them) failure to follow the Lawful orders of a police officer is itself a crime, and is grounds for the officer to arrest the person, even if the person had not done anything wrong prior to that. This obviously leads to the question: what orders are lawful? The officer has a pretty broad range of discretion. Ordering a person out of a car, or to roll down a car window, is pretty clearly lawful. Ordering a person to commit a crime would not be lawful. Neither would ordering a person to submit while the officer rapes or robs the individual be lawful. In practice, the officer will usually think that all of his or her commands are lawful, and might feel threatened by any failure to comply. In which case, the officer might shoot. This might not be upheld later if the command was not lawful and/or the officer's fear was not reasonable, but that will do the person shot little good. It is usually wise to comply with any commend, unless it puts you very directly at serious risk. Remember you don't know what else has happed to the officer that day. Has the officer had a fight with his/her spouse that morning? Just been denied a promotion? Been turned down for a mortgage? None of that should matter, legally, but it will affect the officer's attitude, and can lead to escalation, even if the person stopped is in no way at fault. An instruction to "shut up" is probably not going to provoke an officer to shoot if it is disobeyed, but it might help to escalate the situation. It is probably lawful, depending non the exact circumstances. As to the first amendment issues, that would probably come under the 'time, place, or manner" regulations that may be applied to speech. And even if it is not held to be lawful, the time to contest it is in court, not during the stop. If the officer feels safer with the window fully rolled down so that the officer could reach in, that is probably a lawful command.
Of course a city can enforce their own laws. The possible laws that LA (or any other city) could enforce against the video producers and vbloggers are many: zoning laws (enforcing laws against operating a commercial film set or business in a residentially zoned area); the requirement for an open burning permit, either all year or during times of fire danger; excessive noise ordinances, either 24hr or in a time span from late evening until morning; ordinances regarding excessive traffic and street parking; ID age checks for drinking, if police can get access to the property through warrant or other means; and investigations of criminal behavior shown in the videos. "Basically, after today, if we film in this house we could face up to six months in prison because we need permits," https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/social-media/jake-paul-banned-from-vlogging-in-house/ He could be talking about filming permits, traffic permits, burn permits, occupancy permits, etc. Cities and municipalities can quickly enact new ordinances that criminalize behavior that impacts the neighborhood as a whole after taking into account complaints from neighbors and advice from police regarding activities of the problem residents. Another aspect of the story is that it appears that Jake Paul is a renter. That means the city and neighbors can put pressure on the landlord to encourage Paul to obey the law; failing that, the landlord could possibly evict Paul in a very short amount of time due to possible damage and other clauses in the lease regarding illegal activity, if the lease stipulates anything like that.
If you wrote for example "I had thoughts about taking the axe from my garage and decapitating my neighbour", and your neighbour read that, he would reasonably be worried and contact the police. I would take that as a death threat, and the death threat is by itself illegal. There would be some range where I could claim that you were making a death threat and making excuses to avoid legal responsibility. You can have all the thoughs you like, you can write them into your private diary where nobody can read them, but as soon as you publish it, it becomes "speech" and some speech is illegal.
Yes, there is legal precedent against this that would only apply to a government employee. First, let's discuss the private sector. In this case, you are a private employee that comes to your place of work and accuses you of "stealing the cookies from the cookie jar" which is a serious criminal offense. They wish to talk and your boss is in the room. You plead the 5th, but your boss says you're fired if you don't talk to the cops. This is legal because you still have the right to refuse to talk, you just lose your job. A private employer has the right to free association, and wants nothing to do with cookie thieves, alleged or actual. However, in the government employ, your boss is an agent of the government. This same situation is different because the government pays the boss and the agent... so in essence the government is saying talk or be fired. This is unconstitutional as the government cannot retalitate against you for your refusal to talk. Generally, in order to talk to you, the investigator would need either a signed Garrity Statement or a Signed Kalkines Statement. The former is a statement saying that they are investigating a wrong doing but you cannot lose your job if you refuse to speak to the investigators, where as Kalkines says you must talk but you are granted immunity for your part in the wrong doing, so long as you make truthful statements. For more on this, check this legal blog. There is also the matter that a false accusation (and let me be clear... this is academic, I'm not saying the accusation in the real life topic is false, nor am I saying that the defense is false... we're merely discussing a possibility) is made to your employer and they do not offer the job on the basis of the accusation alone, this is grounds for defamation actions... and in certain jurisdictions, it's criminal defamation, so there could be jail time. It's interesting you mentioned teachers, because this happens alot. Kids do know that there are certain things that get a teacher fired quickly, so teachers do get the occasional false accusation of sexual assault (I know one teacher who has had multiple accusations over the course of her career). One of the few good things I can say about the Teachers Union is they cover the legal defense of accused teachers. The accusations do get the teacher removed from the class for sometime, but they don't lose their jobs over this matter. It's followed up but the accusation doesn't immediately lead to the teacher getting fired..
As far as I know, every jurisdiction in America limits perjury to cases of lying under oath. Because it seems unlikely that the driver would be under oath at this point, you would probably lack probable cause to make an arrest. At the same time, many states have separate laws addressing the making of false reports, lying to an officer, etc. I'd imagine most jurisdictions would have a law supporting an arrest for lying at the scene, even if not for perjury.