ACLU sues North Carolina over harsher riot punishments

Apr 11, 2023, 2:37 PM

FILE - Police in riot gear protect the old state capitol building in Raleigh, N.C., on May 31, 2020...

FILE - Police in riot gear protect the old state capitol building in Raleigh, N.C., on May 31, 2020. A North Carolina civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, challenging a new state law that will increase punishments for violent protests in response to the nationwide 2020 racial injustice demonstrations ignited by George Floyd’s murder. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Harsher punishments for violent protests in North Carolina are being challenged by a prominent civil rights group, which said in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that several parts of a new anti-riot law are unconstitutional.

The North Carolina law was drawn up in response to protests against racial injustice and police brutality in 2020. The demonstrations following George Floyd’s death were largely peaceful but occasionally descended into chaos after dark.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina is asking a U.S. District Court to block enforcement of several provisions of the new law, arguing it “impermissibly criminalizes North Carolinians who exercise their fundamental free speech, assembly and petitioning rights.”

“It is a flagrant attempt to vilify and criminalize a social justice movement,” said Sam Davis, an attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation.

The law was passed last month by the Republican-controlled General Assembly with some bipartisan support. It raises criminal punishments for willingly participating in or inciting a riot. Beginning in December, fines and prison time will increase, typically by a couple years or more, for protesters who brandish a weapon, injure somebody or cause significant property damage. The law also creates new crimes for protesters who cause a death or incite a riot that contributes to a death.

House Speaker Tim Moore sponsored the bill himself, citing firsthand accounts of rioting and looting in downtown Raleigh in June 2020 amid otherwise peaceful protests as his motivation. He and other supporters called the legislation a necessary deterrent and said it will prevent protesters from misinterpreting their First Amendment rights as condoning destruction.

Existing state laws “were not sufficiently strong enough to guarantee that those who engaged in the most violent and destructive behavior would ever see the inside of a jail cell,” Moore said during House floor debate in February.

Moore’s office did not immediately respond Tuesday to messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.

The ACLU suit says provisions of the new law go overbroad, including the definition of a riot as a “public disturbance” involving three or more people whose assembly causes injury or damage, or creates a “clear and present danger” of injury or damage.

The civil rights group also warns that the law criminalizes urging another person to engage in activities defined as rioting, and has provisions that could punish protest leaders who don’t engage in violence themselves. These provisions “target mere advocacy” in violation of the First Amendment, the lawsuit states, and could dissuade people from engaging in lawful demonstrations.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper successfully vetoed a similar proposal in 2021, noting that it could “intimidate and deter” peaceful protesters.

Cooper allowed the bill to become law without his signature last month but expressed concerns about “disparate impacts on communities of color.”

Republicans last month were one seat shy of a veto-proof supermajority in the House, meaning they needed at least one Democrat to override a veto. But six House Democrats — including one who was a chief sponsor — voted in favor of the measure when it passed the chamber in February, indicating a veto override would’ve likely succeeded.

But the GOP party registration from Democrat to Republican on Monday.

Under the law, business owners can seek compensation from protesters who damage property, equal to three times the monetary damage.

Those accused of rioting or looting will also have to wait 24 hours before their bond is set. Bill supporters argued that defendants could otherwise be released immediately by a magistrate and continue causing destruction.

Social justice advocates criticized the measure as it moved quickly through the General Assembly, saying it targets Black Lives Matter demonstrators and other minority groups by scaring them away from exercising their constitutional rights. Some warned it might lead to more arrests of Black and brown protesters who could be unfairly perceived by police as threats to instigate violence or disorder.

___

Hannah Schoenbaum is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

United States News

FILE - Florida Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer sentences Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Browa...

Associated Press

Commission: Florida judge should be reprimanded for conduct during Parkland school shooting trial

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida judge who oversaw the penalty trial of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz should be publicly reprimanded for showing bias toward the prosecution, failing to curtail “vitriolic statements” directed at Cruz’s attorneys by the victims’ families and sometimes allowing “her emotions to overcome her judgement,” a state commission concluded […]

16 hours ago

FILE - A home burns as the Dixie fire jumps Highway 395 south of Janesville, Calif., Aug. 16, 2021....

Associated Press

California insurance market rattled by withdrawal of major companies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two insurance industry giants have pulled back from California’s home insurance marketplace, saying that increasing wildfire risk and soaring construction costs have prompted them to stop writing new policies in the nation’s most populous state. State Farm announced last week it would stop accepting applications for all business and personal lines […]

16 hours ago

Associated Press

US judge yanks approval for Idaho mine after finding that federal agency violated environmental laws

A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s Friday decision came […]

16 hours ago

Sen. Fred Mills asks a question to members of The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Servi...

Associated Press

Louisiana Senate passes bill banning gender-affirming car for transgender youths

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A controversial bill — that at one point had been presumed dead — banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths in Louisiana was passed by the Senate on Monday and is likely to reach the governor’s desk in the coming days. The bill, which passed in the Senate mainly along […]

16 hours ago

Ted Henifin, the interim third-party manager appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to help fi...

Associated Press

Mississippi’s capital only collects 56% of fees from its struggling water system

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s capital is collecting only a little more than half of the money it bills for water use, far below the rate at which most American cities obtain such fees, Jackson’s federally appointed water manager said Monday. Ted Henifin, appointed in November by a federal court to help improve Jackson’s troubled […]

16 hours ago

Associated Press

Chinese ex-official’s wife says alleged repatriation pressure turned her life in US ‘upside-down’

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Chinese official and his wife had left their homeland and kept their U.S. address private. Yet eight years later, two strangers were banging on their New Jersey front door and twisting the handle, the wife testified in a U.S. court Monday. When the men left and Liu Fang opened […]

16 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

...

SANDERSON FORD

Thank you to Al McCoy for 51 years as voice of the Phoenix Suns

Sanderson Ford wants to share its thanks to Al McCoy for the impact he made in the Valley for more than a half-decade.

(Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona Photo)...

Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona

5 common causes for chronic neck pain

Neck pain can debilitate one’s daily routine, yet 80% of people experience it in their lives and 20%-50% deal with it annually.

(Photo by Michael Matthey/picture alliance via Getty Images)...

Cox Communications

Valley Boys & Girls Club uses esports to help kids make healthy choices

KTAR’s Community Spotlight focuses on the Boys & Girls Club of the Valley and the work to incorporate esports into children's lives.

ACLU sues North Carolina over harsher riot punishments