MIAMI – In their latest demonstration, pro-Palestine protesters in Miami termed their activity as an “economic blockade,” through a longstanding state law that defines obstructing traffic without a permit.
A small group of individuals who organized a Tax Day protest now face second-degree misdemeanors.
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People protesting the rising death toll in Gaza were pulled away and handcuffed by Miami police officers after blocking traffic on Biscayne Boulevard near Bayside in downtown Miami on Monday.
Most of them are in their twenties and reside in Miami. Their charges, according to police, are unrelated to the subject of their demonstration.
Their offenses revolve around blocking a roadway without proper authorization.
Specifically, they employed their bodies to block a crosswalk, using homemade devices known as “sleeping dragons” to interconnect protesters. These devices, typically made from painted PVC pieces, fasten several demonstrators together.
Police said the group laid down in the roadway while bound together, obstructing traffic and impeding the regular flow of business into Bayside Marketplace.
According to the reports, officers ordered the protestors to clear the roadway, but they did not comply.
The demonstration was part of an international day of protest against the tens of thousands of Palestinians -- a large number of them children -- killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
This incident brings to mind Florida’s “Combating Public Disorder Act” signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, which seeks to increase penalties for offenses related to disorderly assemblies. However, a federal judge halted the implementation of this law, pending a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court.
Oral arguments were heard in August, but a verdict is yet to be reached.
In the broader context, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld certain restrictions on free speech in the interest of public safety, such as the requirement to obtain permits for demonstrations.
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Donald Jones, a professor of law at the University of Miami, shared his thoughts with Local 10 News on the law and reported arrests, which you can read here:
In a case called Tetaz v. District of Columbia, the court stated “purposely blocking an entrance to a public building enjoys no first amendment protection, certainly none which required the showing of an imminent breach of the peace.” Tetaz v. District of Columbia, 976 A. 2d 907 (D.C. 2009)
In the same vein, local police officers here did not violate First Amendment free speech rights of protestors by refusing to permit them to block traffic and endanger their lives, and the lives of others by their attempt to protest.
It is true that streets and sidewalks are traditional public forums, but not for all purposes and means. There is no tradition which would provide a protection for those who seek to lay down in the streets and block traffic as a form of protest, any more than there is a tradition of blocking the entrances to public buildings.
It may be argued that the protestors who laid down in the streets of Miami were engaging in civil disobedience reminiscent of the civil rights movement and Dr. King. But this is not a good analogy. In the civil rights context blacks were protesting against southern Jim Crow laws which required blacks to sit in the back of the bus, or all white lunch counters which refused to serve them. When blacks sat down in those southern lunch counters or in the front seat of southern buses it was in direct protest against the very laws by which they were arrested. Black could argue the laws were unjust. The protestors who would lay down on highways and roads to obstruct traffic, as a protest, are making no claim that traffic laws are unjust or unreasonable.
And in fact the protestors have ample alternative means to protest their cause that does not involve obstructing traffic, such as protesting on a public sidewalk, or in a park.
Finally, there is no question about the city limiting speech on the basis of content. The municipality in enforcing the laws against the illegal conduct of laying in the street is focusing not on the content of the expression but the illegal manner in which the so called protestors are seeking to “express” themselves.