Defendant's Attorney: Marcus Angelo Manos

Description: Florence, South Carolina civil rights lawyer represented the Plaintiff challenging city ordinance.

A city ordinance makes it a crime “to broadcast obscene, profane or vulgar language from any commercial property” above certain volumes at certain times. A bar owner sued, arguing the ordinance violates the First Amendment. This appeal involves only the portion of the ordinance restricting “vulgar” language.

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The reader may wonder why we are even here. True, the district court rejected Moshoures’ constitutional challenge to the vulgar-language provision. But the court did so because it construed the vulgar-language provision as restricting only speech that is “obscene” both as a constitutional matter and as defined and restricted in the obscene-language provision whose constitutionality Moshoures no longer challenges. So why does it matter if the vulgar-language provision remains legally operative when the district court has construed that provision as covering only speech that is already prohibited by another provision that will remain in effect no matter what we say in this appeal?

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To decide whether the vulgar-language provision is constitutional, we must first decide what it means. See, e.g., United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 474 (2010). In doing so, we grant no deference to the district court’s views and must exercise our own independent judgment. See Salve Regina Coll., 499 U.S. at 239–40. Having done so, we conclude the vulgar-language provision restricts at least some speech that is not obscene in a constitutional sense (see Part III(A)), that it is appropriate for us to reach the First Amendment question (see Part III(B)), and that the vulgar-language provision is unconstitutional (see Part III(C)). We thus reverse the district court’s judgment in part and remand for further proceedings.

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Outcome: Reversed

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