Honking not inherent right
Published 5:23 pm Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Honk once if the state is on track to make important, precedent-setting legal history with a case challenging Snohomish County’s noise ordinance now before the state Supreme Court. Tootle twice if the case seems better suited to “People’s Court,” complete as it is with a complaint about back-yard chickens.
The facts: At 6 a.m. on a Saturday in 2006, former Monroe resident Helen Immelt blasted her car horn for several minutes outside a neighbor’s house in protest of a letter she received from her homeowners association ordering her to stop raising chickens in her back yard. The man was the association’s president.
A Snohomish County sheriff’s sergeant called to the scene warned Immelt not to honk again. But shortly after, she did honk again and was arrested. Violating the ordinance twice within 24 hours can lead to a criminal charge, as Immelt learned. After a trial in Evergreen District Court, Immelt was (incredibly) sentenced to 10 days in jail (the sentence was stayed as she continued her legal odyssey.) The state Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.
“Horn-honking per se is not free speech,” Justice C. Kenneth Grosse wrote. “Horn-honking which is done to annoy or harass others is not speech.”
Reasonable people can discern when a horn is being used properly for safety reasons, or to harass. But Immelt, representing herself, convinced the Supreme Court to take another look.
Now that she’s made it to the state’s highest court, a helpful attorney has naturally stepped forward to defend her and the First Amendment. Oh, and to have a chance to argue before the state Supreme Court.
Lynnwood attorney John Tollefsen says the ordinance is too broad and could be interpreted to deny all expressive, non-safety-related honking — such as the toot of support for U.S. troops.
Which, of course, is not what Immelt was doing.
Scheduled to testify on Immelt’s behalf are a flock of Canada geese and group of bone-shattering car stereo system aficionados. THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA, they are expected to testify, loudly.
The county will call reasonable people, including Jerry Seinfeld, whose classic riff on men’s inability to think of ways to meet women works as a summation:
“… The car-horn-honk, is that a beauty? Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car, the woman walks by the front of the car, he honks. This man is out of ideas.”
Free speech requires an idea (grand or stupid), not just sound and fury. Without translation, a car horn can’t say “Leave me and my chickens alone.”
