Only in America: The right to flip the bird

(Image credit: ThinkStock/iStockphoto)

last updated 8 January 2015

Upstate New York resident Joshua Swartz was pulled over and arrested after he gave a cop the middle finger at a traffic intersection in 2006. Now, nearly seven years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has overturned a lower court's decision and dropped all charges against Swartz. The decision "reaffirms that just because you insult a police officer, [it] doesn't give that police officer the right to detain you or arrest you and take away your liberty," attorney Elmer Robert Keach III told the AP.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.