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Four years later, her T-shirt is legal

The state Supreme Court throws out a law against wearing police insignias, overturning a Pinellas woman's conviction.

By CHRIS TISCH and ROBERT FARLEY
Published June 24, 2005

[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]

Kimberly Sult holds a sheriff's T-shirt as she listens to her attorney during a press conference Thursday. Sult was wearing a similar T-shirt when she was arrested in 2001.

LARGO - It could have ended easily enough four years ago with a $300 fine.

But Kimberly Sult, a 28-year-old campus security guard and single mother of two, spent more than $10,000 to fight the law.

Sult was arrested in 2001 on a charge of unlawfully using a police badge or insignia.

Her crime: wearing a T-shirt with "Pinellas County Sheriff's Office" printed on the back.

A jury convicted her. A judge fined her. An appeals court ruled against her.

But Sult and her attorneys appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which on Thursday ruled the law is unconstitutional, essentially knocking it off the books. Sult's sentence likely will be vacated.

"I didn't want anyone else to experience what I experienced," Sult said Thursday afternoon. "The humiliation. The money." Her attorneys hailed the court's 5-2 decision as a victory for First Amendment rights.

"It's a huge deal," said Largo lawyer John Trevena. "There are First Amendment implications that reach far beyond the parameters of the T-shirt in this case. It comes down to basic freedoms."

The law was passed in 1991 as part of the so-called "blue-light laws," which came after a series of violent attacks in which crooks with blue flashing lights on their dashboards pulled people over and took their cars.

But part of the law went a step further, making it a misdemeanor for civilians to wear the insignias or uniforms of any police agency, even if they had no criminal intent.

A kid playing cops and robbers - a badge pinned on his shirt - could be breaking the law. So could a Halloween partygoer dressed as a constable. So could a bachelor-party stripper busting out of a fake cop uniform.

And so was anyone who wore NYPD ball caps or T-shirts after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Everyone was wearing law enforcement and firefighter regalia," said Patrick Calcutt, another lawyer who worked on the case. "It kind of underscores the unfairness of the law."

Anyone arrested on the charge could have faced up to a year in jail, though it fell short of the felony charge of impersonating an officer.

Calcutt said few other states have such a law and that, even in Florida, it is rarely enforced.

Sult's case changed all that.

It began on June 14, 2001, when Sult threw on the shirt and a pair of jean shorts and headed to the store to buy milk for her 16-month-old son.

She drove her 1990 Escort - affixed with a "Support Law Enforcement" bumper sticker - to the RaceTrac gas station on 54th Avenue N in St. Petersburg.

Sult had purchased the shirt at a Largo uniform shop in 1999 while she worked as a civilian jail employee. She was fired for missing too much work.

The word "sheriff" was printed in five-inch yellow letters on the front of the black shirt, along with the agency name and a printing of a badge on the back.

Two deputies at the gas station thought she was a deputy. They told her dressing half in uniform was against policy.

The deputies said Sult told them she still worked there and displayed an ID card. Sult later said she told the deputies she used to work for the agency.

The deputies forced Sult to put on another shirt while the other one was photographed and placed into evidence. After about two hours, the deputies issued her a notice to appear in court on the charge.

"It was absolutely humiliating," she said.

Although sheriff's officials said the shirt was only for deputies, a St. Petersburg Times reporter easily bought one at the Largo uniform shop that week.

Sult's case gained nationwide media attention and still stands as one of the most highly publicized Pinellas court cases.

Three years before, the Sheriff's Office also was the subject of some controversy when a deputy charged a man for wearing a cap with the initials LAPD. The charge later was dropped, and Sheriff Everett Rice apologized.

Trevena, who also represented the man in the LAPD case, dared prosecutors to take the Sult case to trial. They did, with a veteran attorney at the helm.

After a two-day trial, jurors found Sult guilty.

Jurors told a Times reporter, however, that the case never should have been prosecuted. But they felt the law left them no choice but to convict.

A judge acknowledged he thought Sult intended to fool the deputies, but gave her one of the most lenient penalties he could: a $300 fine.

A radio station morning program paid the fine for Sult, who at that time was working as a teacher's aide. People from around the country contacted her, offering support and financial help.

When Sult later took a job as a security officer at Gibbs High School, students and teachers stopped her: "You're the T-shirt girl!"

The day after the verdict, Rice directed his deputies to stop enforcing the law unless a suspect was using the shirt or insignia to commit another crime.

Sult appealed her conviction. When her money ran out, Trevena handled the case for free.

Two years later, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland backed the the law, but asked the Florida Supreme Court to have a final look.

The Supreme Court decision released Thursday calls the law unconstitutionally broad and vague.

In the majority opinion, Justice Charles T. Wells said the law also violates the right of due process because it doesn't give "fair notice of what conduct is prohibited . . . making entirely innocent activities subject to prosecution."

Justice Raoul G. Cantero III wrote the dissent, arguing that the law does not restrict free speech, but protects the police.

"I fear that today the court has stripped law enforcement agencies of one more important weapon in their battle against crime," Cantero wrote. "I only hope that the Legislature acts quickly to fill the void."

Attorney General Charlie Crist said he has no plans to appeal, but does "look forward to working with the Legislature next year to make sure that law enforcement is protected and freedom of expression isn't infringed upon," a spokeswoman said.

Rice, now a state representative who is running for Attorney General, also thinks the Legislature will rework the law.

"I wanted to make it right," Sult said. "I could not sit back and let this happen to someone else."

[Last modified June 24, 2005, 12:24:04]