Pennsylvania police stop issuing tickets for swearing
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania - January 6, 2011 - Firing off a few curse words can't be charged as a crime anymore in the state of Pennsylvania - at least when state police are involved.
State police have agreed to stop citing the public for cursing as part of a settlement Tuesday of a federal free speech lawsuit.
The American Civil Liberties Union represents Pennsylvanians who have been ticketed for cursing at an overflowing toilet, a swerving motorcyclist and a parking ticket issuer.
The citations can lead to hundreds of dollars in fines and legal costs, not to mention the occasional jail stint.
"Using profanity toward someone, whether an officer or not, is just not one of those things (for which) you can put someone in jail," ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper said Tuesday. "It may not be very smart, but you have a constitutional right to do (it)."
Yet state troopers issued more than 700 disorderly conduct citations for swearing in a recent one year span, and local police hundreds more, the ACLU learned during the court case.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court years ago deemed such speech legal as long as it's neither threatening or obscene, said Roper.
In perhaps the most memorable cursing case in Pennsylvania, the city of Scranton in 2008 paid $19,000 plus legal costs to a woman charged with swearing at her overflowing toilet.
Also, the city of Pittsburgh paid $50,000 last year to a man cited for an obscene gesture. The ACLU found city police had written 188 disorderly conduct citations over a 32-month period for swearing, gestures and other disrespectful conduct.
"If somebody's making a threat, or pushing and shoving and fighting, that's a different thing," said Roper. "But if people are cursing each other, you can't issue a criminal citation and subject them to hundreds of dollars in fees for bad manners."
