ICP front man Violent J

A few years ago, we posted about an ACLU lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, seeking to have followers of the Insane Clown Posse, known as Juggalos, removed from the FBI's roster of dangerous gangs. The Juggalos appealed the dismissal of their case and won in the Sixth Circuit.

This week, the ICP was sued in the same court on a trademark infringement suit. The plaintiff, a poet, alleges that ICP frontman, "Violent J", co-opted his poem, "But You Didn't" without permission.

In his complaint the plaintiff alleges that he wrote the poem, and that his work, including this poem, is featured in the popular "Chicken Soup Series" and that it is copyrighted. Plaintiff further alleged that the ICP published a derivative of the poem without permission, causing damages to the poet plaintiff.

 The case is so fresh, the Farmington Hills-based ICP has yet to answer the complaint. If the allegations are true regarding the trademark registration of the poem, it will be a difficult case for the ICP to defend.

Are there any Juggalo attorneys out there?

Post #587
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Not a gang, just family.

The good news from Cincinnati is that Juggalos are not gang members. Whew; now I can get a good night sleep.

Juggalos are followers of the Farmington Hills-originated rap duo, Insane Clown Posse. Think: hard-core, off-color drug-addled rap version of Jimmy Buffet's "parrotheads".

The band and its followers are making headlines again from a lawsuit that is grinding along in the federal court system. A small group of Juggalos appealed the dismissal of their federal civil rights lawsuit and the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and remanded the case back to Detroit for further proceedings.

The beef arose in 2011 when a much-publicized FBI report characterized Juggalos as a loosely-organized hybrid gang; whatever that means. The Sixth Circuit's opinion states that, "Juggalos are easily spotted because they display, on person or property, insignia representative of the band."  [Yes, in fact, they do  r-e-p-r-e-s-e-n-t, and the "insignia" most commonly displayed is a crazy man running with a hatchet, pictured above.]

The rap group's devotees cried foul in the wake of the FBI report, claiming their civil liberties were impinged through such heavy-handed law enforcement tactics. Juggalos are not a gang, they proclaim, just one big happy sloppy family.

The Sixth Circuit's opinion details the specific transgressions claimed by each of the six plaintiffs, two of whom claim their ICP-themed tattoos caused them grief with the U.S. Army because of their perceived association with a gang on the "government gang list."  Accordingly, plaintiffs claim violations to their First and Fifth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.

In reversing the federal court in Detroit, the Sixth Circuit held that Juggalos did have proper standing to sue in the federal court under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Declaratory Judgment Act. The appellate ruling, however, also directed the lower court to now consider the governments claim-based motion to dismiss the case.

So this litigation will be around for awhile. If you are a Juggalo, it certainly does not hurt to have Michigan's largest law firm, Miller Canfield, representing your interests along with the ACLU.

Nevertheless, Juggalos beware. This was merely a [small] procedural victory. For his part, the local cop on the beat will always view you a part of a crime gang.

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Detroit's Insane Clown Posse

Juggalos: those zombie-like fans/groupies/followers devoted to the aging Detroit-based rap duo Insane Clown Posse.  Like them or not, ICP has a long tortured history, having been hatched in Detroit's service drive music scene back in 1987; an eternity in the music world.

According to Wikipedia:

The group is composed of Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform under the respective personas of the "wicked clowns" Violent J  and  Shaggy 2 Dope.  Insane Clown Posse performs a style of hardcore hip-hop known as horrorcore and is known for its elaborate live performances.  The duo has earned two platinum and five gold albums.  

The songs of Insane Clown Posse center thematically on the mythology of the Dark Carnival, a metaphoric limbo in which the lives of the dead are judged by one of several entities.  The Dark Carnival is elaborated through a series of stories called Joker's Cards, each of which offers a specific lesson designed to change the "evil ways" of listeners before "the end consumes us all."

Thus is the stage set for hordes of Juggalos.  With the band's history of assault convictions in the late 1990s, every concert retains its recipe for a suburban cult disaster.  And guess what, although the band-mates deny it, there have been incidents of violence, drugs and exhibitionism at many ICP concerts; law enforcement is on to "them".

Yet not all Juggalos are committing crimes at concerts.  And not all Juggalos are bad; misunderstood and perhaps sorely misguided, but not all law breakers.  So over here at the Law Blogger, what we're wondering is whether such extreme yet collective bad taste should be criminalized?

Some time ago, the FBI glommed onto this game for bored suburbanites.  Back in 2011, the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center designated "Juggalos" as a "loosely organized hybrid criminal gang."  In and around the 313, law enforcement has been on the lookout for Juggalo types, especially at ICP concert venues like the Royal Oak Music Theater.

Juggalos have been harassed, and the band has suffered; now they've stuck back.  The ACLU Detroit has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the fan base, seeking injunctive relief, i.e. the removal of Juggalos from the FBI gang squad's list of the infamous, and destruction of all Juggalo files and documentation: especially the photos, recording what has to be a rogues gallery of self-deprecation, if not self-mutilation.

After all, criminalizing bad taste is, in the words of the ACLU lawyer assigned to the case, "un-American".  If the First Amendment and its long tortured history means anything to the federal judge assigned to the case, this will be an ACLU victory.

Update:  Here is an update from the Detroit News in April 2014, with the ICP trying to change its image.

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