Rex v. Martinez, No. 11-5199 (2d Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseCFF, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting adoption, filed suit against the DMV after the DMV rejected CFF's application for a "Choose Life" custom license plate. The district court concluded that DMV violated CFF's First Amendment rights and, in the alternative, that the entire license plate program was unconstitutional on its face because it afforded the DMV Commissioner unbridled discretion over which custom plates to approve. The court concluded, however, that the content of New York’s custom license plates constitutes private speech and that the plates themselves are a nonpublic forum; CFF’s facial challenge fails because New York’s custom plate program did not impermissibly vest the DMV Commissioner with unbridled discretion in approving custom plate designs; and that program, as applied in this case, was reasonable and viewpoint neutral, which is all that the First Amendment requires of restrictions on expression in a nonpublic forum. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on May 26, 2015.
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