Willian Barboza, illegally arrested for profanity-laced speeding ticket, court rules

It might be crude to scrawl a string of curse words in a written response to a speeding ticket, but it certainly isn’t illegal.

That was the opinion of New York judge who ruled that officials violated the First Amendment rights of the 22-year-old man who was arrested for letting loose with a string expletives on a response form he mailed along with payment for the traffic ticket.

“F—k your s——y town b——-s” wrote Willian Barboza on a traffic ticket form accompanying his payment for a 2012 speeding ticket that he mailed to — of all places — the town of Liberty, New York. To boot, Mr. Barboza had also scratched out “Liberty” on the form replacing it with “Tyranny.”

But when Liberty court clerks received the payment, they  perceived the message as a potential threat and referred it to a judge. As a result, Mr. Barboza’s ticket payment was rejected and a court date was set — at which point he was arrested and taken into custody for a violation of the state’s former “aggravated harassment” statute.

Mr. Barboza later sued, alleging that the arrest violated his First Amendment rights.

In a ruling announced Tuesday by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Barboza, U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel determined that the lawsuit can proceed. She ruled that lawyers for Mr. Barboza will be able to argue that the town of Liberty was at fault for failure to adequately train its police officers about the First Amendment.

Judge Seibel also determined that the town’s assistant district attorney could potentially be held liable for the violation of Mr. Barboza’s rights, as he was the one who ordered two police officers to arrest Mr. Barboza at his court hearing.