Is Placing"No Trick or Treating"Signs in Sex Offenders'Yards Unconstitutional? - a podcast by Jill Rosensweig

In this week's episode of the podcast, Attorney Rosensweig is discussing a class action lawsuit that was filed by three convicted sex offenders last month against a sheriff in Butts County Georgia who put "no trick or treating" signs in their yards just before Halloween last year.  The petitioners in the case are claiming that the signs constitute compelled speech in violation of their first amendment rights.  Do these signs qualify as "compelled speech" when the signs themselves make clear that the message is coming from the sheriff's office? Is speech that is clearly coming from the government unconstitutional if a citizen is being forced to display that speech on their private property?  Ms. Rosensweig compares this case to the landmark Wooley case, where the Court decided that it was unconstitutional to force someone to display a license plate that says "Live Free or Die" on their car since this qualified as "ideological speech" and the plaintiff in that case did not agree with the government's message.  Ms.  Rosensweig opines as to whether these signs in sex offenders' lawns also qualify as "ideological" speech and, if they do not, could they still be considered compelled speech based on comments made in other Supreme Court cases?  Finally, Ms. Rosensweig discusses whether or not these lawn signs achieve a compelling government interest in protecting the public and if they are narrowly drawn in doing so.  All of this and more is discussed in this episode. 

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