{"id":179142,"date":"2026-03-05T11:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179142\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T11:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:52:07","slug":"lawsuit-calls-floridas-license-plate-law-unconstitutional-amid-citations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179142\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit calls Florida\u2019s license plate law unconstitutional amid citations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida drivers are raising alarms over a new license plate law, as a recent lawsuit claims its vague language has led to a wave of confusing and unconstitutional citations across the state.<\/p>\n<p>A recent lawsuit filed by <a href=\"https:\/\/tickettoro.ai\/challenge-320061\/learn-more\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ticket Toro<\/a> claims that the law, which bans anything that blocks or covers a license plate\u2014even dealership frames\u2014is unconstitutional and lacks clear definitions of what constitutes a violation.<\/p>\n<p>Ticket Toro said that the law, <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/florida-makes-common-license-plate-accessories-illegal-heres-whats-banned\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Statute 320.061<\/a>, prohibits &#8220;altering&#8221; or &#8220;mutilating&#8221; a license plate tag, but it doesn\u2019t specify what qualifies as \u201calteration.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit says that this vagueness has led to various interpretations by law enforcement agencies, resulting in inconsistent enforcement across the state.<\/p>\n<p>Ticket Toro filed the federal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, along with a motion in Miami-Dade County Court that argues the law is unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause. They claim it doesn\u2019t provide clear guidelines on what behavior could lead to criminal liability.<\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/former-chief-financial-officer-sues-indian-river-state-college-president-marvin-pyles-st-lucie-county-circuit-court-text-messages-evidence-florida-news?teaserSource=trending\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ex-Indian River State College CFO files whistleblower lawsuit, cites president\u2019s texts<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the federal complaint, Ticket Toro is seeking a statewide injunction against enforcing this law and wants any citations issued under this statute to be expunged. Their state court motion argues that the statute should be void and requests certification to the Third District Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Ticket Toro reported that since the law came into effect, there have been 422 criminal citations issued in Miami-Dade County in four months.<\/p>\n<p>According to Ticket Toro, the problem lies in the law\u2019s failure to define what constitutes an &#8220;alteration.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Ticket Toro said that one notable case involved Demarquize Dawson, who was arrested in December 2025 for a decorative license plate frame that partially covered the letter &#8220;S&#8221; in \u201cSunshine State.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n<p>BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n<p>The police apparently later admitted that the arrest was \u201cinvalid\u201d and acknowledged that the wording of the statute is vague and open to misinterpretation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida drivers are raising alarms over a new license plate law, as a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-179142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}