Eleventh Circuit Blesses Florida Riot Statute

By John R. Byrne

Hope everyone is staying dry and safe. Another win for the State of Florida at the Eleventh Circuit. After a series of protests opposing police violence, the Florida legislature amended Florida’s criminal riot statute. That led to challenges by various civil rights organizations. The challenges? Vagueness and overbreadth. Here is the statutory language:

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.

Fla. Stat. § 870.01(2).

Judge Walker in the Northern District agreed with the challengers, enjoining enforcement of the statute. Though the Eleventh Circuit expressed its own misgivings about the statute’s meaning and reach, it certified a series of questions about it to the Florida Supreme Court. And the Eleventh Circuit was satisfied with that court’s “definitive” interpretation, writing: "The touchstone of liability under the riot statute is violence. This violence may not be incidental; it must be intentional."

Seems right to me, given the statutory language. Opinion excerpted below.

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