Houston yard display of people hanging from nooses sparks free speech debate

This display on the east side of Houston, where 88% of the neighborhood's population is Hispanic

is sparking an online debate over the First Amendment, and whether this is protected free speech or if it crosses a legal threshold into inciting violence

The display features two people in red MAGA-like ball caps hanging from gallows

Next to them, another mannequin wearing a poncho and straw hat, two caskets, and a Mexican flag

And by no means am I threatening nobody's life. This is part of my First Amendment to be able to express how I feel

The online response has been swift. One user writing, this should be immediately taken down for inciting violence

especially in light of what's happening in America today. Another suggesting it's a clear hate crime

and someone else on X saying this isn't celebrating Halloween. It's celebrating political violence

Straight Arrow News spoke with a neighbor who defended the display If you believe it you know it free will We live in the land of freedom We have freedom in this country So you can celebrate whatever you want to celebrate

And Rodriguez says while the feedback has been mixed, most of it's been positive

I'm getting some positive, some negative. A lot of my neighbors love it

I have not got one person to come with a negative vibe around here

because all I'm doing is practicing my First Amendment rights. But is this Halloween display protected by the First Amendment

We spoke with a professor at Washington University's School of Law in St. Louis

who teaches on the First Amendment for his input. The display is what's called an effigy, a depiction of a person

That's what effigies are. It's a form of speech that goes way back

When you're asking me about the content of this message, whatever you might think of it, it is protected by the First Amendment

Important context to point out here. Professor McGarrion noted sometimes there are local regulations against certain banners

postage or regulations on the size of certain yard displays But this homeowner says there are no such local restrictions and that local police confirmed that for him McGarrian pointed us to two different Supreme Court cases he says are relevant to this one

One is R.A.V. versus St. Paul, a case from 1992. A teenager burned a cross on a black family's lawn, violating a City of St. Paul ordinance

banning symbols that provoke anger based on race, religion or gender. However, the Supreme Court ruled that ordinance unconstitutional

Ruling hate speech alone isn't automatically illegal, but protected under the First Amendment

And the Supreme Court said you can't do that. You can't restrict speech because of its message, even if the message is really awful

Another Supreme Court case, Virginia v. Black, from 2003. This one was over a Virginia law banning cross burnings intended to intimidate

The Supreme Court ruled that the act of cross burning is protected as free speech and could

not automatically be taken as evidence of an intent to intimidate. McGarrian says it all really comes down to whether a display can be interpreted as a direct true threat That true threat exception is really narrow It a really hard thing to prove

It may be sort of a terrible thing, but you're allowed to say, I think that person deserves to die

What you're not allowed to do is go up to a person and say, I'm going to kill you. McGarrian says ultimately the courts decide the interpretation of First Amendment law

But he says if a case were to arise from this, he believes the homeowner would be protected

I am strongly confident, based on my knowledge of the law, that any court doing its job properly would look at this and say

this isn't a true threat of violence directed at a specific person, reasonably perceived as such by any specific person

This is a strong, perhaps unduly harsh, but First Amendment protected political message