The Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday that the state’s “anti-riot” law, passed in 2021 which creates harsher penalties for protesters, does not apply to demonstrators who are present at a protest but don’t engage in violent or disorderly conduct.
The ruling by the conservative-leaning court is considered a victory for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has previously argued that individuals peacefully protesting would not be subject to arrest.
But the ACLU of Florida is also applauding the decision, calling it a “monumental victory for protestors who have been chilled by government officials’ past threats to crack down on Floridians who wish to speak about injustice.”
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The state Supreme Court’s 32-page ruling answers a question posed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit about the meaning of the law ( HB 1), officially labeled the “Combatting Violence, Disorder, and Looting, and Law Enforcement Protection Act,” but better known as the “Anti-Riot Act.”
The Florida Legislature passed and Gov. DeSantis signed the measure into law in the spring of 2021, months after the summer of 2020, when protests broke out throughout the state calling for racial reconciliation and police accountability in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.
The federal appeals court has been reviewing the case after DeSantis and former Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams appealed U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s decision to strike down the law, ruling that its definition of the word “riot” was so vague that people couldn’t understand what they’d need to do to avoid arrest if a demonstration got out of hand.
Following the law’s passage, a host of groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Division of Florida, including Dream Defenders, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, Black Collective Inc., Chainless Change Inc., and Black Lives Matter Alliance Broward.
The “Anti-Riot” law amended state statutes to define what constitutes a riot. The law says that “[A] person commits a riot if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an assembly of three or more persons, acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct, resulting in: (a) Injury to another person; (b) Damage to property; or (c) Imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property.”
Define ‘riot’
The Eleventh Circuit wrote that the question about the law’s constitutionality turned on the proper interpretation of the new definition of what a “riot” is in Florida law, which the state Supreme Court had not addressed. The Eleventh Circuit posed additional questions, such as what qualifies as a “violent public disturbance” and “what conduct is required for a person to ‘willfully participate in a violent public disturbance’”?
The state Supreme Court concluded that “to obtain a conviction under section 870.01(2), the State must prove a defendant acted with intent to assist others in violent and disorderly conduct.” The justices wrote that Gov. DeSantis and Sheriff Williams had argued that “a violent public disturbance” is a “riot,” and that to “willfully participate” in a riot one must share a ‘common intent to assist [others] in violent and disorderly conduct.’”
“A peaceful protester, under the most natural reading of the statute, is no rioter. We agree,” the justices wrote.
The opinion was written by Justice John Couriel, with Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz and justices Charles Canady, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis, and Meredith Sasso concurring.
Justice Jorge Labarga also concurred but wrote a separate opinion, saying that he thought the law was ambiguous.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys released a statement later on Thursday, saying that the decision from the Florida Supreme Court clarifies that the riot definition can’t be read to apply to non-violent protestors or bystanders.
“H.B. 1 threatened to upend the lives of Floridians, especially Black Floridians, who would have been criminalized and targeted simply for exercising their First Amendment rights and standing up for what they believe in,” read the written statement, sent to media organizations by the ACLU of Florida. “The advocacy of plaintiff organizations throughout this legal battle has been critical to ensuring the rights of all people to exercise their First Amendment rights. Today’s decision provides important legal protections that will benefit anyone who wants to take a public stand to demand racial justice, as well as all Floridians who want to non-violently demonstrate for what they believe without fear of reprisal.”
The Florida Supreme Court is now returning the case to the Eleventh Circuit.
This story was updated with comments from the ACLU of Florida.
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