South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

People are regularly charged with public disorderly conduct, breach of peace, or interference with a police officer and arrested and imprisoned by police officers for questioning their authority, asking questions, using profanity, or doing anything in general that pisses off the cop. Many people may not realize that all of the above is protected conduct under the First Amendment, unless the person's conduct arises to the level of "fighting words," which is defined by the U.S. and S.C. Supreme Courts as conduct or words that would tend to immediately incite violence.

This has been the law according to the United States and South Carolina Supreme Courts for over 30 years, and it is well established. The police know that this is the law - they are specifically trained on First Amendment law at the academy and they are told that they cannot arrest a person for speech unless the person speaking is causing violence.

Despite this, they also know that most people can not afford to retain an attorney - that they will plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge in the morning and most likely pay a fine. They know that they have made their point - piss me off and you will spend the night in jail. Attorneys call it "contempt of cop" - analogizing to "contempt of court," where a judge can put you in jail if you disrupt the courtroom. Police are not judges, and they have no such power.

This widespread practice of police is an abuse of power. The problem is a lack of training, a lack of supervision, a lack of discipline in the police departments that allow it to happen. Horry County Police Department is among those agencies with a systemic problem that allows this to happen - in a recent case an officer testified that there was nothing wrong with arresting and jailing a person if they questioned his authority, did not listen to him, or cursed in front of him. When they were sued, Chief of Police Johnny Morgan sat in the courtroom for the entire trial and watched. He said nothing. He offered nothing. He did not admit that what happened was wrong, there was no apology, and there was no discipline for the officer. They laughed at the breaks, when the jury was out of the courtroom, and they joked about what had happened. That same officer is or was a part of a group of officers who continue to arrest and jail people for protected speech, when a citizen makes them angry. It is an institutional problem which begins at the top of the chain.

Being overpowered, handcuffed, made helpless, sometimes physically hurt in the process, humiliated, and then locked in a cell overnight or longer is no small slight - it is a terrifying experience, more so when you know that you have done nothing wrong and that the person doing it to you is not following the rules.

It goes unnoticed because most people have the nagging feeling that maybe they did something wrong. Maybe it was my fault. We want to trust the police. After a night in a cage they appear before a judge and agree to pay a fine so that they can go home.

Last October three police in Columbia, S.C. arrested a man named Jonathan McCoy for contempt of cop - they didn't know who he was - as far as they knew it was just some asshole who had the nerve to walk up and ask them why they were arresting his friend. I don't know why they were arresting Jonathan's friend, only that Jonathan says he did nothing more than question the officers when he was taken to the ground, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed. While in jail he witnessed another inmate commit suicide by hanging himself.

Jonathan is not just another helpless person walking down the street who does not know their rights - he is a lawyer from Myrtle Beach, S.C. The incident was captured on a video camera in Five Points, S.C. - video footage which shows that the officers lied in their incident reports:

In the police incident report, officers said McCoy "grabbed an officer by the arm and asked what was happening." Officers asked McCoy to step back but he continued to intervene, getting in officers' faces, according to the incident report.

WMBF has the video - Jonathan walks up to the officers and appears to be questioning them; he is almost immediately pushed violently by an officer and then he is shoved almost off camera by two officers before he is handcuffed.