Registration plates are not guaranteed by free expression, says the Supreme Court TN

Nashville, Tenn. (WSMV) – The Supreme Court of Tennessee said that personalized registration plates are not guaranteed by free expression.

The statement comes after a three -year case in which a woman from Nashville, Leah Gilliam sued the Commissioner of the Tennessee Income Department, David Gerrageno.

Gilliam sued the state after the personalized registration plate that has read “69pwndu” for more than a decade, has been considered offensive.

It sued the state claiming that he discriminates on the basis of the point of view with the violation of the first amendment.

The state claimed that the point of view does not apply to the alphanumeric combinations on authorized plates, because they are government speeches are not private.

In the court, they agreed with the state and rejected Gilliam’s first challenge. But then the Court of Appeal reversed this decision. The Supreme Court of Tennessee has given a review to determine whether there are government speeches or private speeches.

The court said they were a government speech and said that the first amendment does not forbid the state to return to Gilliam’s registration based on his message.

“In making this decision, the Court was very based on the 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Walker V. Texas, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., in which the court established that specialized registration plates in Texas are a government speech,” said the Supreme Court in Tennessee. “Although personalized alphanumeric combinations differ from specialized plates in some respects, the Supreme Court in Tennessee concluded that a faithful application of Walker’s reasoning obliges that the alphanumeric codes are also the Government’s speech.”