Judge Blocks Prosecutor From Using Unconstitutional Anti-Drag Law To Arrest People During Pride Festival

Legal Issues

from the be-terrible-on-your-own-time,-counselor dept

It’s great to see hateful people being shut down by little things like, you know, the Constitution. Would that it happened more frequently. Or, more hopefully, would that the mere existence of the Constitution prevent hateful legislators from passing hateful laws that have zero chance of surviving a constitutional challenge.

It’s the land of the free, however. And that seems to mean lawmakers are free to pass performative laws meant to harass, harm, and oppress anyone that doesn’t comply with these white men’s (and it’s almost always white men) rolling-coal-over-Truck-Nutz version of human sexuality.

That’s how things are going all over the nation. This latest rejection of the worst (seemingly sexual) urges of lawmakers and the prosecutors who serve them comes from Tennessee, which recently passed an “anti-drag” law that was immediately shut down by the first federal court to examine it.

The state blew public money while holding its clipboards over its weird boners while defending the law, but saw itself on the losing end of the first decision, which pointed out the law did nothing to protect minors from “obscene” content but did everything to ensure performative lawmakers could violate the rights of people who actually know a thing or two about entertaining performances.

The federal court stated what was immediately obvious to everyone, even those whose continued employment required them to pretend otherwise:

This District Court does not find that the Tennessee General Assembly’s predominate concerns were “increase in sexual exploitation.” Rather, the Court finds that their predominate concerns involved the suppression of unpopular views of those who wish to impersonate a gender that is different from the one with which they were born.

The law was blocked. And yet the state — here taking the form of one particular county prosecutor — insists the law should remain valid so this prosecutor can engage in constitutional violations. Here’s the latest in the Tennessee anti-drag law embarrassment, as reported by Chris Geidner (a.k.a. Law Dork):

U.S. District Judge J. Ronnie Greer barred the Blount County, Tennessee, prosecutor and law enforcement in the county from enforcing the state’s new anti-drag law in advance of this weekend’s Blount Pride.

In issuing the temporary restraining order against District Attorney General Ryan Desmond, the county sheriff, and the two police chiefs in the county, Greer, a George W. Bush appointee, also barred the officials from “interfering” with the Sept. 2 pride festival “by any means.”

This TRO [PDF] is the result of other litigation against the state’s anti-drag law. But the end result is the same. The state can’t use a law almost certainly to be found unlawful to affect arrests or fine participants in the upcoming festival.

Despite (even admittedly!) the law being unlawful, local law enforcement (including DA Ryan Desmond) informed the host of the festival it would be enforcing a law another court in the state had already declared unconstitutional.

Three days ago, Blount Pride received a “Notice Regarding The Adult Entertainment Act” from Defendant District Attorney Desmond. Defendant Chief Crisp, Sheriff Berrong, and Chief Carswell also received the notice. District Attorney Desmond’s notice states that the Blount County District Attorney’s Office had fielded “numerous communications from law enforcement, local officials, and concerned citizens” that Blount Pride’s third annual festival is “marketing itself in a manner which raises concerns that the event may violate certain criminal statutes within the State of Tennessee.”

In the notice, District Attorney Desmond acknowledges that the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee has recently held that the Act is unconstitutional but states that the Western District’s “enjoinder is presently only applicable to the 30th Judicial District,” which serves Shelby County, Tennessee. District Attorney Desmond goes on to state that “violations of the AEA can and will be prosecuted by [his] office” and that he has “relayed to local law enforcement” his intent to prosecute any violators of the Act.

A petty man with some power and a bunch of hate hoped to mobilize law enforcement to punish people who chose to celebrate other strains of human sexuality. Obviously, this was the best use of law enforcement resources — an attempt to use a law subject to several lawsuits as a weapon against those the law was directly designed to punish: non-heterosexual people.

Law enforcement was no better about this. Chief Crisp reiterated the threat to the festival and appeared to be ensuring he had enough manpower on the clock to enforce an unconstitutional law.

Too bad, says the judge. The prosecutor and his law enforcement lackeys just need to sit put and entertain their masturbatorial law enforcement fantasies some other way. And pretending you didn’t mean the thing you absolutely meant (when threatening the pride event) doesn’t work, not when the Constitution is on the line.

[D]istrict Attorney Desmond argues that his notice is not an enforcement warning letter because it states that “[i]t is certainly possible that [Plaintiffs’ shows] will not violate any of the criminal statutes.” But his reading of his own notice is a selective one, because throughout the notice, he warns would-be violators of the Act of his authority and his intention to prosecute them under the Act…

[…]

[T]he Court cannot help but wonder, why would District Attorney Desmond send the notice to multiple local law enforcement officials—Chief Crisp, Sheriff Berrong, and Chief Carswell—if, as he now claims, his notice is merely a paper tiger and nothing more? The record, therefore, firmly satisfies the second factor [threat of prosecution].

So, in the end — at least for the length of the pride festival — DA Desmond and his Keystone Cops would need to find some actual crimes to prosecute. They were forbidden from using a bad law to engage in worse law enforcement. And another blow against bigoted lawmaking is delivered by a federal court, something that should, but probably won’t, discourage similar legislative efforts in the future.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, adult entertainment act, anti-drag law, blount county, pride festival, ronnie greer, ryan desmond, tennesee