Andrea Dick is a die-hard supporter of former President Donald J. Trump and thinks the election was stolen from him, though that declare has been totally discredited. She doesn’t like President Biden, and that’s placing it mildly.
Her opinions are clear within the blunt slogans blaring from the banners outdoors her New Jersey dwelling: “Don’t Blame Me/I Voted for Trump” and several other others that assault Mr. Biden in crude phrases. A number of characteristic a phrase that some folks discover significantly objectionable however whose use the Supreme Courtroom way back dominated couldn’t be restricted merely to guard these it offends.
When native officers requested her to take down a number of of the banners that they stated violated an anti-obscenity ordinance, she refused. Now, she is resisting a choose’s order that she achieve this and pledging to combat it in court docket on free speech grounds.
“It’s my First Modification proper,” she stated in an interview on Monday, “and I’m going to stay with that.”
In a rustic the place the political fault strains are more and more jagged and deep, Ms. Dick’s case is the most recent of a number of such disputes to spotlight the fragile stability native officers should generally strike between defending free speech and responding to issues about language that some residents discover offensive.
Ms. Dick, 54, stated she acquired the banners — which can be found from Amazon and different retailers — earlier this 12 months, however didn’t hold them on the house in Roselle Park the place she lives along with her mom, or on the fence outdoors, till Memorial Day.
“One thing should have gotten me labored up,” she stated.
Shortly after the vacation weekend, she stated, she turned conscious that some Roselle Park residents, noting that her dwelling was close to a college, had been upset in regards to the language on the banners and in regards to the potential for passing kids to see it.
Ms. Dick, whose mom, Patricia Dilascio, owns the home, stated that no kids lived on the block and that no kids routinely stroll by on their approach to the varsity.
However the city’s mayor, Joseph Signorello III, stated he had obtained a number of complaints in regards to the banners, which he handed on to the borough’s code enforcement officer. Residents of Roselle Park, a city of 14,000 folks a few 40-minute drive from Instances Sq., voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Biden in November.
“This isn’t about politics in any approach,” stated Mr. Signorello, a Democrat. He added that officers would have taken the identical steps if the indicators expressed opposition to Mr. Trump utilizing comparable language. “It’s about decency.”
After visiting the house, the code enforcement officer, Judy Mack, cited Ms. Dilascio for violating a Roselle Park ordinance that prohibits the show or exhibition of obscene materials throughout the borough.
Ms. Mack stated that in additional than 12 years as a code enforcement officer in Roselle Park, she had by no means invoked the ordinance earlier than. She additionally stated that whereas Mr. Signorello had handed on the residents’ complaints, he had not directed her to take any particular motion.
“I’m solely doing my job,” Ms. Mack stated.
Ms. Dick was given just a few days to take away the banners, Ms. Mack stated. When she didn’t, she was given a summons to look in court docket.
At that look, final Thursday, Choose Gary A. Bundy of Roselle Park Municipal Courtroom gave Ms. Dilascio, because the property proprietor, every week to take away three of the ten indicators displayed on the property — those together with the offending phrase — or face fines of $250 a day.
“There are various strategies for the defendant to precise her pleasure or displeasure with sure political figures in the USA,” Choose Bundy stated in his ruling, noting the proximity of Ms. Dick’s dwelling to a faculty.
Using vulgarity, he continued, “exposes elementary-age kids to that phrase, on daily basis, as they cross by the residence.”
“Freedom of speech will not be merely an absolute proper,” he added, noting later that “the case will not be a case about politics. It’s a case, pure and easy, about language. This ordinance doesn’t prohibit political speech.” (Nj.com reported Choose Bundy’s ruling on Friday.)
Jarrid Kantor, Roselle Park’s borough legal professional, applauded the choose’s resolution, saying that native officers had been cautious to not make a difficulty out of the political nature of Ms. Dick’s banners and had centered as a substitute on the potential hurt to kids.
“We predict he acquired it good,” Mr. Kantor stated.
However Thomas Healy, a legislation professor at Seton Corridor College with experience in constitutional points, disagreed.
Citing a 1971 Supreme Courtroom resolution, Cohen v. California, that turned on the query of whether or not the identical phrase at situation in Ms. Dick’s case was obscene, Professor Healy stated the phrase clearly didn’t qualify as obscene speech within the context of the political banners.
“It’s exhausting to think about a less complicated case from a constitutional standpoint,” he stated, including that he could be “shocked” if Choose Bundy’s ruling had been upheld.
Professor Healy stated he additionally discovered it troubling that the enforcement motion had come after the mayor relayed issues in regards to the banners to the code enforcement officer, regardless that each of them stated that Mr. Signorello had not directed any particular motion.
“It doesn’t look good,” Professor Healy stated.
Conflicts just like the one involving Ms. Dick have flared up this 12 months on Lengthy Island; in Indiana, Tennessee and Connecticut; and a few half-hour’s drive south of Roselle Park, in Hazlet, N.J.
Hazlet officers obtained complaints like these in Roselle Park when a house owner put up an analogous anti-Biden banner there, Mayor Tara Clark stated.
Citing an anti-nuisance ordinance, Ms. Clark stated, officers approached the home-owner final month and requested that he take away the offending flag, however they didn’t take any steps to power him to take action.
“We knew that there have been residents who had been upset,” she stated. “however we additionally know that free speech is protected below the Structure of the USA.”
Although some folks might need been sad that the banner couldn’t be pressured down, Ms. Clark stated that she and her fellow Hazlet officers felt it was vital to face up for the First Modification.
“It ended there,” she stated. (The home-owner took the banner down final week, she stated.)
As for Ms. Dick, she and her mom have about two weeks to attraction Choose Bundy’s ruling to New Jersey Superior Courtroom. He stated the each day fines would start accruing on Thursday if the offending banners remained up, no matter whether or not Ms. Dick and her mom selected to attraction. In the event that they do attraction, he advised they take the banners down pending the result.
On Monday, Ms. Dick didn’t sound like she deliberate to observe that recommendation. She stated she was searching for a brand new lawyer and was dedicated to seeing the case by.
“I’m not backing down,” she stated.