Bush, joined Pryor on the appellate panel. Circuit Judges Elizabeth Branch, a Donald Trump appointee, and Edward Carnes, appointed by George H. We therefore certify a question regarding the meaning of 'riot' in the new state law to the Florida Supreme Court." She added, "We think it appropriate to give the Florida Supreme Court the opportunity to provide an authoritative interpretation of the state law before we decide whether the law is constitutional. Circuit Judge Jill Pryor, an Obama appointee, in Tuesday's order. "Whether Florida’s riot statute is unconstitutional turns on the proper interpretation of the new definition of 'riot' under Florida law-a question the Florida Supreme Court, the final arbiter of state law, has not yet addressed." wrote U.S. However, given the vagueness around what is permitted under the law, the three-judge panel concluded that it should be up to Florida's highest court to clarify the law before its constitutionality can be determined. Governor DeSantis and Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams appealed the ruling to the 11th Circuit, arguing that nonviolent demonstrators will not be prosecuted even if they are in close proximity to a "violent public disturbance."Īfter hearing arguments from both sides last March, the Atlanta-based appeals court on Tuesday agreed with the district court that the groups face a "credible threat of prosecution" and sufficiently showed that their members' speech was being chilled by "self-censoring for fear of the challenged statute’s enforcement against them.”
Walker wrote that the statute forced "would-be" protesters to choose "between declining to jointly express their views with others or risk being arrested and spending time behind bars." The Barack Obama appointee further concluded that "the vagary of this statue empowers law enforcement officers to exercise their authority in arbitrary and discriminatory ways." District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction in September 2021 blocking DeSantis and three county sheriffs from enforcing the amended law. Soon after its passage, several civil rights organizations that regularly organized peaceful protests for racial justice, including Dream Defenders and the Florida State Conference of NAACP, challenged the new definition, arguing it infringed on their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights.Ī federal judge agreed, finding the new statutory definition to be vague and overbroad. Under the new statue, a person is guilty of rioting when one “willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more persons” who are “acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct resulting in injury to another person, damage to property or imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property.”
The Florida Legislature passed the Combatting Violence, Disorder, and Looting, and Law Enforcement Protection Act the following spring, which allowed authorities to detain arrested protesters until a first court appearance and established new felonies for its amended definition of the crime of rioting. That fall, DeSantis referred to the protests as "disorder and tumult" and vowed to have "a ton of bricks rain down on" those who engaged in such conduct with new legislation enforcing harsher penalties for violent protesters. ATLANTA (CN) - The 11th Circuit asked the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday to interpret the new meaning of "riot" as amended in a state law pushed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in response to protests that erupted following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
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