Hanging of 'Truck Nuts' Grows into a Free Speech Debate

We read:

"'Don't touch my junk,' is taking on new meaning. "Truck nuts," fake bull testicles made of plastic or metal that drivers hang on the back of their pickups to make a truck look more manly, have been around for years. Some find them funny, while others find them offensive, prompting at least three states to try to ban them -- unsuccessfully.

But a recent case in South Carolina is fueling debate over whether these ornaments violate a state's indecency laws and if attempting to regulate them infringes on freedom of speech.

On July 5, Virginia Tice, 65, from Bonneau, S.C. pulled her pickup truck into a local gas station with red, fake testicles dangling from the trailer hitch. The town's police chief, Franco Fuda, pulled up and asked her to remove the plastic testicles.

When she refused, he wrote her a $445 ticket saying that she violated South Carolina’s obscene bumper sticker law.

Tice lawyered up and said that she was preparing to challenge Fuda in court. But before she could ask for a jury trial, Fuda, in a rare move, beat her to it. Fuda says he is pushing for a jury trial and hopes the outcome will clarify the state’s obscenity laws, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

Scott Bischoff, Tice’s lawyer, says his client is not bowing down because “this whole thing was caused by the arresting officer, who is arbitrarily interpreting a statute incorrectly.” Bischoff will argue whether these large, red, plastic testicles are “really an accurate depiction of a human body part.”

“He is nuts,” says Jay Bender, a lawyer and professor at the University of South Carolina, referring to Fuda and his interpretation of the law. Bender says although tasteless and stupid, they are not illegal, and adds, “Chief Fuda is abusing his arrest powers.” He says the statute is very clear about what material is obscene and “it doesn’t have anything to do with artificial bull testicles.”

Hudson believes Tice and her lawyer can make a good case the South Carolina law is “unconstitutionally vague and unconstitutionally broad, and it violates the First Amendment.”

Hudson detailed many cases where law enforcement officials cited individuals for the content of their bumper stickers, and in the majority of those cases, a judge tossed them out because “the First Amendment protects a great deal of offensive expression.”

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Police are very prone to taking an over-broad view of their powers so one hopes that this cop is reined in