Finally we have a law review article about a legal issue that might interest lay people. Ira P. Robbins, the Barnard T. Welsh Scholar and a Professor of Law and Justice, at the Washington College of Law of American University published an article in the University of California, Davis Law Review called “Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law.” The 83 page article contains everything you wanted to know and more about the legalities of flipping the bird. I cannot wait until the movie comes out. The preamble to the article says:
“a number of recent cases demonstrate that those who use the middle finger in public run the risk of being stopped, arrested, prosecuted, fined, and even incarcerated under disorderly conduct or breach-of-peace statutes and ordinances. . . . the pursuit of criminal sanctions for use of the middle finger infringes on First Amendment rights, violates fundamental principles of criminal justice, wastes valuable judicial resources, and defies good sense.”
I learn something new everyday. I’ve been worried about the loss of freedom caused by the food police, the toy police, the noise police, the clown mask police, the elementary school sexual harassment police, the snowball police, the elementary school no-touching the opposite sex police, the elementary school doodling police, the light rail police, the elementary school science project police, the advertising police and just today the billboard police. I did not realize that our freedom is also being threatened by the middle finger police.
I am the author of the article you quote here. The reason I decided to write the article is that far too many people who use the middle finger gesture get arrested by police officers who must have too much time on their hands. Do you really think it’s a waste of time to write an article about a subject that allows police to arrest individuals arbitrarily and subject them to prosecution and the possibility of jail time?
Why is is that Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) gave the finger to a journalist a couple of weeks ago and no one suggested arresting him, but the ordinary person who uses the same gesture is treated as a common criminal?
I know it *seems* like a humorous topic — and, indeed, the title of my article lends some support to that feeling — but I assure you that the matter is an extremely serious one. The police ought to be trained to ignore such gestures as this and turn their attention to far more important matters. Like stopping crime.
Thanks for leaving a comment. I created that headline in an attempt to be funny and to attract more viewers to read the post and hopefully your article. I think the headline will generate more interest than a headline such as “Law Professor Writes Law Review Article about the First Amendment.” I apologize and did not mean to offend you. I agree with you that your article is about a serious subject and well worth what I am sure was an enormous amount of time you spent researching, writing, and rewriting the article. In fact, I am a fan of your article, which is why I mentioned it on my blog.
Your topic also supports a subject that worries me greatly, i.e., we have too much government infringing on our freedoms, including the freedom to make an obscene gesture. I hope you read some of the “police” articles I mentioned in the second paragraph. I also wrote another post today entitled “The Criminalization of Almost Everything,” which references an article published by the Cato Institute. In this post I mention one example – it is a federal crime to possess wood from trees in Madagascar.
Also, just FYI — the article appeared in the UC Davis Law Review, not the “University of California Law Review” (there is no such publication).
Fixed. Thanks for the correction.