## Facts

- Houston enacted an ordinance making it unlawful to “assault, strike or in any manner oppose, molest, abuse or interrupt any policeman in the execution of his duty.”
- Raymond Wayne Hill saw police confronting Hill’s friend during a traffic-related incident.
- Hill shouted criticism at the officers to draw their attention away from his friend and acknowledged he was interrupting the investigation.
- Police arrested and charged Hill for “willfully … interrupt[ing] a city policeman … by verbal challenge during an investigation,” under the ordinance.
- Hill was acquitted in a nonjury municipal-court trial.
- Hill later brought a federal civil action challenging the ordinance’s constitutionality and seeking damages and attorney’s fees.

## Issues

1. Whether the ordinance is substantially overbroad on its face under the First Amendment because it criminalizes a significant amount of protected speech directed at police officers.
2. Whether the ordinance’s breadth and lack of limiting standards grant police excessive discretion, risking speech-based enforcement.
3. Whether the ordinance can be saved by construing it as limited to unprotected categories such as “fighting words” or to non-speech “core criminal conduct.”

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit and held the ordinance facially invalid under the First Amendment (8–1).
- The Court ruled that the ordinance’s enforceable portion targets verbal interruptions of police and “criminalizes a substantial amount of” protected speech.
- The Court held that the ordinance confers unconstitutional enforcement discretion by allowing arrests for speech that is merely annoying or offensive.
- The Court rejected narrowing constructions that would limit the ordinance to fighting words or to physical obstruction, concluding the text swept far more broadly.
- Justice Powell concurred in part and in the judgment, cautioning that in some settings hostile speech to police may be difficult to distinguish from unprotected interference.
- Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented, arguing the Court should have awaited or sought an authoritative state-court construction before invalidating the ordinance.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers, including speech that opposes or contests police action.
- A law is facially invalid for overbreadth when it prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech relative to its legitimate sweep.
- Ordinances regulating speech must not vest police with unguided discretion that permits arrests based on annoyance, offensiveness, or hostility to the speaker’s message.
- “Fighting words” may be punished, but a broadly worded prohibition on “interrupting” police is not saved absent a clear limitation to unprotected speech or conduct.
- Where enforceable provisions primarily regulate speech rather than physical interference or violence, heightened First Amendment constraints apply.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated Houston’s ordinance because, as enforced, it broadly criminalized verbal challenges to police and allowed discretionary, speech-based arrests, making it substantially overbroad under the First Amendment.


City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (1987)