Indiana Principal Smacked Down!

An Indiana juvenile court judge held that a juvenile who posted expletives about her high school principal on someone else’s myspace page had not only violated the State anti-harassment statute, but that her comments were legally obscene. Check out this little gem from the lower court.

The [juvenile court] finds that the words “Fuck Mr. Gobert” and “Hey you piece of Greencastle shit what the fuck do you think of me now that you can’t control me? Huh? Ha ha ha guess what I’ll wear my fucking piercings all day long and to school and you can’t do shit about it. Ha ha fucking ha! Stupid bastard” is obscene. As the well known U.S. Supreme Court decision “One knows Pornography when one sees it,” this [c]ourt finds that such language is obscene in the context used by [A.B.]. [A.B.] was not exercising her constituted rights of free speech in such a tirade – but to use the most vulgar language she could. Moreover she was not expressing her opinion in her writing.

So the juvenile court cited to “the well known U.S. Supreme Court decision” but apparently forgot all about Miller v. California?

Fortunately, the Indiana Court of Appeals knows its Constitutional law and reversed and remanded. However, they went even further than that. The Court of Appeals held that the student’s postings were protected political speech! I do agree, but I am both stunned and delighted that the Court held as such.

The case is available here.

You gotta love this little gem from the kid:

Hey you piece of greencastle shit.
What the fuck do you think of me [now] that you can[‘t] control me? Huh? Ha ha ha guess what I’ll wear my fucking piercings all day long and to school and you can[‘t] do shit about it! Ha ha fucking ha! Stupid bastard! Oh and kudos to whomever made this ([I’m] pretty sure I know who). Get a background.

I can’t wait to use that in a brief one day. See AB v. State, 863 N.E.2d 1212, 1214 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (“Ha ha fucking ha! Stupid bastard!”).