Victory for cussing canoeist up **** creek without a paddle

The United States constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but it has its limits: it does not, in the famous lawyerly phrase, protect the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.

But it does protect the right to shout other four-letter words beginning with f, a judge ruled this week - especially if the canoe in which you are travelling has just hit a rock, upending you into a freezing Michigan river.

After a four-year legal battle, a state appeals court yesterday overturned the conviction of Timothy Boomer - a 28-year-old computer programmer who won international renown as the cussing canoeist - and struck down Michigan's 105-year-old law against using "indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar or insulting language in the presence or hearing of any woman or child."

In 1999, Mr Boomer was threatened with a jail term, then fined $75 (£47) and sentenced to four days of community service, after unleashing a stream of obscenities as he tumbled from his boat into the Rifle River in Arenac County, in the east of the state. Unfortunately for him, his words carried around a bend in the river and into the sensitive ears of Michael and Tammy Smith and their children, aged three and five, who were also canoeing. The policeman who booked him said Mr Boomer swore up to 75 times.

"We're delighted with the verdict," William Street, an attorney who handled the case for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the Guardian. "I talked to Timothy Boomer, and he's very pleased that he can get on with his life."

Mr Boomer's trial had highlighted the absurdity of the state law, he said, when prosecutors sought to establish exactly which words Mr Boomer had used.

"It was carried live on Court TV, so here we were broadcasting in the early afternoon hours, when children were coming home, and the courtroom was full of lawyers using the foulest language you could imagine."

The defendant refused to repeat himself, but vowed to fight the case until acquitted. "Unfortunately for them, this example wouldn't go away," he told the Detroit Free Press this week. Wendy Wagenheim, a spokesperson for the ACLU in Michigan, said the verdict was "a clear message from the court that the government cannot act as the speech police just because someone is offended by someone else's language."

Only Tammy Smith seemed dismayed by the news that canoeists capsizing in Michigan would henceforth be allowed to express their true feelings. "If I wanted my kids to be exposed to [profanities]," she said, "I would have taken them to a bar."