City of San Diego, California et al. v. John Roe (543 U.S. 77)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 6, 2004 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 543 U.S. 77 · 125 S. Ct. 521
- Decided
- December 6, 2004
- Term
- October Term 2004
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. The city of San Diego (City), a petitioner here, terminated a police officer, respondent, for selling videotapes he made and for related activity. The tapes showed respondent engaging in sexually explicit acts. Respondent brought suit alleging, among other things, that the termination violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of speech. The United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted the City’s motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. J — i Respondent John Roe, a San Diego police officer, made a video showing himself stripping off a police uniform and masturbating. He sold the video on the adults-only section of eBay, the popular online auction site. His username was “Code3stud@aol.com,” a wordplay on a high priority police radio call. 356 F. 3d 1108, 1110 (CA9 2004). The uniform apparently was not the specific uniform worn by the San Diego police, but it was clearly identifiable as a police uniform. Roe also sold custom videos, as well as police equipment, including official uniforms of the San Diego Police Department (SDPD), and various other items such as men’s underwear. Roe’s eBay user profile identified him as employed in the field of law enforcement. Roe’s supervisor, a…
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