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Is a using a racial slur free speech or a crime? CT Supreme Court reinstates conviction of man ...
Is a using a racial slur free speech or a crime? Connecticut Supreme Court reinstates conviction of man who shouted slur at parking officer in a ‘Fighting Words’ case
By EDMUND H. MAHONY
HARTFORD COURANT
AUG 27, 2020 AT 6:05 PM
The state Supreme Court on Thursday weighed in on the thorny question of when using racist language is criminal, upholding a breach of the peace conviction against a man who directed a racial slur at a traffic enforcement officer who had just issued him a parking ticket.
In a unanimous opinion written by outgoing Justice Richard N. Palmer, the court said the slur, which was both racially insulting and obscene, amounted to “fighting words” — words that could provoke a violent response and that “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
[...]
By EDMUND H. MAHONY
HARTFORD COURANT
AUG 27, 2020 AT 6:05 PM
The state Supreme Court on Thursday weighed in on the thorny question of when using racist language is criminal, upholding a breach of the peace conviction against a man who directed a racial slur at a traffic enforcement officer who had just issued him a parking ticket.
In a unanimous opinion written by outgoing Justice Richard N. Palmer, the court said the slur, which was both racially insulting and obscene, amounted to “fighting words” — words that could provoke a violent response and that “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
[...]
5 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
The parking ticket case grew out of the issuance of a $15 citation by a New Canaan traffic officer, who is Black, to David G. Liebenguth of Greenwich, who is white, in the summer of 2014. Liebenguth, according to a variety of accounts outlined in court records, became enraged. He told the officer to “remember Ferguson,” a reference to the shooting of a Black man by police in Missouri. Liebenguth was accused of muttering slurs and clearly uttering a slur as he drove out of the lot.
