In a case sure to go to the Supreme Court and rile up a WHOLE lot of people, the Ninth Circuit just overturned a conviction of a former Marine for wearing medals he didn’t earn on Free Speech grounds.
An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said a portion of a federal law that made it a crime to wear an unearned military medal violated freedom of speech rights.
The panel found that wearing a medal conveys a message, which is protected by the 1st Amendment.
Now here’s the real twist of the story:
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned another portion of the act that made it a crime to lie about having won a military medal. Since Swisher’s conviction, the law no longer penalizes people for wearing unearned medals.
Fox News is already running with it. Let’s see how far this one will go.