8/11 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has struck down Indiana’s 25-foot police “buffer zone” law as unconstitutionally vague, ruling it violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections. The August 5 decision found that the 2023 statute—House Bill 1186—grants officers excessive discretion to order people to stop approaching, enabling arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. Judge Doris Pryor wrote that police could criminalize innocent actions, such as “taking a morning stroll” or asking for directions, even for trivial reasons like a “bad breakfast.” State attorneys conceded that officers could stop someone for no reason at all, which the court deemed unacceptable. The law, which made violations a Class C misdemeanor, had been on hold since September 2024, when a federal judge sided with a coalition of Indiana media outlets challenging its fairness. While additional proceedings will determine the scope of the permanent block, the ruling effectively makes enforcement nearly impossible. Similar media-backed challenges to police buffer laws in Louisiana and Tennessee remain pending.