Michigan briefly made national news last year when a man was convicted in Arenac County district court for swearing in front of women and children.
Timothy Boomer fell out of his canoe and unleashed a prolonged fit of swearing that, according to witnesses, including screaming the F-word more than 75 times (obviously his English language skills were on par with his canoeing skills). It would have been proper for police to charge him with disrupting the peace or being a public nuisance, but instead prosecutors insisted on charging him with violating a 106-year old law making it illegal to curse in front of women and children.
Since then the law has been involved several times including the most recent incident. Jeffery Richards, 27, allegedly argued with the bus driver who drove his child from school. Richards allegedly said he was going to “rip off the driver’s f—– head and shove it down his throat,” followed by a string of other obscenities. Fine, charge Richards with making a terrorist threat or disrupting the police. But no, Grand Rapids prosecutors had to go and charge him with using obscenities in front of women and children.
The anti-cussing statute is clearly unconstitutional and at some point is going to be thrown out as such. The American Civil Liberties Union is already appealing Boomer’s conviction on the grounds that the statute is excessively broad. As the ACLU’s William Street told The Grand Rapids Press, “We simply think this law, the way it was developed, on its face is unconstitutional at all times.”
And yet prosecutors across the state have nothing better to do but pursue expensive prosecutions for violating a statute that will, in the end, turn out to have no force of law.
Thank goodness Michigan prosecutors are keeping me safe from profane speakers rather than pursuing more serious crimes.
Source:
Cussing law gets a workout once again. Barton Deiters, The Grand Rapids Press, December 3, 2000.