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Judge: Harris can’t declare sign law unconstitutional

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County Solicitor Steve Harris has declared he won’t prosecute persons cited with violating the county’s sign ordinance for having more than one political sign in their yard.

Harris claims the ordinance is unconstitutional. But that issue is yet to be decided, State Court Judge Fletcher Sams says in a recent letter to Fayette County Administrator Chris Cofty.

Although Harris has the authority to dismiss individual cases, “I believe he has no judicial authority to invalidate laws or to declare them unconstitutional,” Sams wrote in the letter. “This is the responsibility of the judiciary.

“The judicial canons of ethics prevent me, any judge or judicial candidate from prejudging any issue likely to come before our courts,” Sams wrote in the letter. “Therefore, I assure you I have neither formed, nor expressed, any opinion as to the legality of Fayette County’s Sign Ordinance. This letter should not infer to anyone how this court will rule. If any constitutional challenge to Fayette County’s Sign Ordinance is presented in this court, I will adjudicate that issue to the best of my ability, only after all parties have had an opportunity to be fully and fairly heard.”

Harris, who is running for a Superior Court judgeship against incumbent Tommy Hankinson, says the ordinance limits Fayette residents to expressing their support for just one candidate in one contested race whereas someone might wish to support several candidates in different races.

“Displaying a sign from a home carries a message quite distinct from placing the sign somewhere else,” Harris wrote in a recent letter to Cofty. “In addition, residential signs are unusually cheap and convenient as a form of communication, especially for persons of modest means.”

In support of his argument, Harris cites a Georgia Supreme Court decision in a Union City case that political speech can’t be restricted by a sign ordinance.

The county’s sign ordinance only distinguishes between commercial signs and non-commercial signs. The ordinance allows just one non-commercial sign per lot that can be no bigger than six square feet and no taller than three feet.

Cofty said the county has “always enforced the ordinance regarding signs” and recent actions have not been targeted at any person or persons seeking office.