A federal appeals court upheld a block on Indiana’s 25-foot police buffer law, siding with media organizations who argued it violated constitutional rights. (Getty Images)
A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking Indiana’s widely debated 25-foot police buffer zone law, ruling that the statute is “unconstitutionally vague” and “susceptible to arbitrary enforcement.”
In a decision issued Tuesday, a unanimous Seventh Circuit panel found the law lacks clear standards for police conduct, allowing officers to criminalize behavior based solely on personal discretion.
“The Fourteenth Amendment will not tolerate a law subjecting pedestrians to arrest merely because a police officer had a bad breakfast — no matter how bitter the coffee or how soggy the scrambled eggs,” Judge Doris Pryor wrote for the court.
The law, passed in 2023, makes it a Class C misdemeanor to knowingly approach within 25 feet of a law enforcement officer after being told to stop.
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Supporters at the time said some situations become more volatile when people are too close to the officers.
Members of the press and the public argue the so-called “buffer zone” limits their ability to hold law enforcement accountable, especially when it comes to public recordings.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of media organizations — including the Indiana Broadcasters Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, The Indianapolis Star and others — sued in November 2023 to block the law.
U.S. District Court Judge James Sweeney II, of the southern district, issued a preliminary injunction in September 2024, agreeing that the law was likely void for vagueness under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed in its Tuesday ruling. Justices largely focused on the statute’s failure to guide officer discretion.
“Without such guidance, any on-duty officer can use the buffer law to subject any pedestrian to potential criminal liability by simply ordering them not to approach, even if the pedestrian is doing nothing more than taking a morning stroll or merely walking up to an officer to ask for directions,” Pryor wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a separate lawsuit in August 2023 on behalf of South Bend’s Donald Nicodemus, whose YouTube channel captures his interactions with the local police force, saying the law infringed on his constitutional rights.
Nicodemus has previously encountered controversies as a “citizen journalist” and captured video of an officer ordering Nicodemus to stand 25 feet away.
Earlier this year, though, a different Seventh Circuit panel upheld the same law against the First Amendment challenge. Unlike in Nicodemus, the Reporters Committee case centers on vagueness and due process, not speech rights.
A new version of the buffer law, passed earlier this year, imposes a “reasonable belief” requirement for police issuing orders.
The second buffer law is identical to the first, except it specifies that a member of law enforcement can only order an individual to stop approaching if the officer “reasonably believes that a person’s presence” within 25 feet “will interfere with the performance” of their duties.
“Because the State intends to continue enforcing the first buffer law, the enactment of the second buffer law did not moot this appeal,” Pryor said in the ruling.
The appeals court affirmed the enforcement block of the original buffer law but sent the case back to the lower district court to reconsider how broadly the injunction should apply.
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