Court: Wearing cop attire isn't crime

A state law prohibiting civilians from wearing police T-shirts and similar items is unconstitutional, an appeals court says.

MIAMI - An appeals court on Wednesday threw out a state law prohibiting civilians from wearing police gear, citing in part the popularity of law enforcement attire worn "out of reverence" since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The decision came in the case of a speeding motorcyclist, Alberto Rodriguez, who was chased by police on an expressway while wearing a T-shirt with "Police" printed on the front and back.

The law is unconstitutional because it makes it a crime for civilians to wear public safety apparel widely sold after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal.

"It has now become commonplace for many Americans to wear authentic-looking law enforcement T-shirts, caps and other paraphernalia merely out of reverence to the tragedy's heroes," Judge Robert Shevin wrote for the unanimous panel. "There is the potential of penalizing purely innocent, protected conduct."

Nearly identical reasoning was rejected by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in February when it upheld the conviction of a Pinellas County woman arrested for wearing a Pinellas Sheriff's Office T-shirt.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal found the law constitutional.

Contradictory decisions by different appellate courts are fairly common. The Florida Supreme Court usually intervenes in such cases to resolve the conflict. The Pinellas case has already been appealed to the high court.

The Pinellas arrest generated national attention and led Sheriff Everett Rice to tell deputies to stop enforcing the law. Rice said he thought the law was constitutional, but not worth the trouble to enforce.

The Miami appeals court indicated that a law requiring proof of bad intent would be acceptable, as opposed to a blanket ban against the display of law enforcement "indicia." Florida has a separate law against impersonating an officer.

The disputed law "makes no distinction between the innocent wearing or display of law enforcement indicia from that designed to deceive," Shevin wrote.

Assistant Public Defender Lisa Walsh, who represented Rodriguez, said, "It's an easy law to fix."

Assistant Attorney General Barbara Zappi, who argued the appeal on the Miami-Dade police stop, said she had no comment.

Rodriguez pointed to his shirt and mouthed the word "police" to pursuing officers during the 2001 chase, which reached 105 mph. Walsh said she thought an impersonation charge would have been valid based on that behavior.

Walsh said she thinks Rodriguez has already served his 21/2 years in jail for aggravated fleeing, resisting arrest, reckless driving and wearing the T-shirt.

- Times staff writer William R. Levesque contributed to this report.

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