INDIANAPOLIS — A U.S. District Court has granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against Indiana's "Buffer Law," finding the law is unconstitutionally vague.
Indiana lawmakers passed the law in April 2023, allowing police officers to ask bystanders to back up 25 feet from where an officer was questioning someone, making an arrest or conducting any kind of police business. A bystander who disobeyed could be charged with a misdemeanor and face a fine and/or jail time.
The law took effect three months later in July 2023.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, along with several central Indiana media outlets — including WTHR — challenged the law as unconstitutional.
On Friday, Sept. 27, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled that the Buffer Law "does not define with any specificity the kind of conduct that would prompt an order to move back and contains no standards for law enforcement officers to follow in enforcing the law, leaving it susceptible to arbitrary and discretionary enforcement."
Because of those points, the court determined the plaintiffs would be likely to prove the law "is void for vagueness in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment," which states "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
The court also found that the parties who challenged the law "face severe, irreparable damage to their First Amendment rights without an injunction due to the Buffer Law's vagueness and potential for arbitrary enforcement."
