The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a federal lawsuit against North Carolina after the state increased penalties for property damage committed during a protest.
The legal advocacy group argues the law is unconstitutional because it violates North Carolinian’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
North Carolina enacted House Bill 40 – the Anti-Riot Act – on March 21 without the signature of Governor Roy Cooper. The policy was initially introduced in February and was described as “an act to increase the penalties for rioting or inciting rioting that causes damage to property, serious bodily injury, or death and assaulting emergency personnel during a riot or state of emergency.”
The bill defines a riot as “a public disturbance involving an assemblage of three or more persons which by disorderly and violent conduct, or the imminent threat of disorderly and violent conduct, results in injury or damage to persons or property or creates a clear and present danger of injury or damage to persons or property.” Under the law, willfully participating in the riot is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
“Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class F felony if in the course of the riot the person causes property damage in excess of two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) or serious bodily injury,” states HB 40. “Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class E felony if in the course of the riot the person causes a death.”
The ACLU objects to the increased penalties, calling the law’s provisions “overbroad and vague.” The organization claims it will be applied “even where a protestor only verbally encouraged activities defined as ‘rioting’ and did not take any individual actions to cause injury or damage” or “to protestors whose own conduct is entirely peaceful.” The group says the law will “function to dissuade people from engaging in lawful protest activities.”
“HB40 represents a culmination of the legislature’s repeated efforts to crack down in response to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020,” said Sam Davis, an attorney for the ACLU of NC Legal Foundation, in an April 11 press release. “It is a flagrant attempt to vilify and criminalize a social justice movement.”
Davis said his organization is suing “to protect the right to protest” and to demonstrate “our continued support and defense of the Black Lives Matter movement and activists.”
“This bill forces North Carolinians to risk the immediate and long-term loss of their freedom when exercising their right to protest,” said Davis.
The ACLU has asked in the lawsuit for the court to issue a preliminary judgment preventing the Anti-Riot law from being enforced.
Governor Cooper previously vetoed a similar law in 2021, arguing that the “legislation is unnecessary and is intended to intimidate and deter people from exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully protest.” According to WRAL, Cooper did not take the same action with HB 40 because he is aware that “even if he had vetoed it, he likely would’ve lost that fight with the legislature.”
North Carolina Republicans have a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate.
