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Sure, it's a free country. So you'd think you'd be free to speak your mind or scrawl your opinions on a poster, right?

KHOU

Signs like these are banned under Houston law.

Wrong.

Believe it or not, Houston has a law making it a crime to carry posters on public streets.

City leaders called it a bad law and they even told police to ignore it.

But one HPD officer either didn't get the memo or decided to enforce it anyway and now taxpayers will pick up the tab.

"I have no idea what people were thinking when they passed a law like that," Mayor Bill White said.

Way back in the Vietnam war era, Houston passed an ordinance forbidding people and animals from displaying posters on city streets.

"But that's what America is about," said protester Christopher Kelly.

One night in 2004, Kelly was carrying an anti-Bush protest sign down Main Street when he says he was approached by a police officer.

"He first asked me to give him the sign. And I said I would not give him my sign. It's the right to, people to protest," said Kelly. "And you have freedom of speech. And he kept asking for my sign and then it ended up to be a physical struggle between me and three police officers."

They ended up writing him a ticket, specifically citing that he was carrying an anti-Bush poster.

Now, HPD has circulars indicating that people are not to use this law. But Kelly was cited under the sign law.

A lawsuit followed.

The lawsuit points out that, on that same night, Astros fans going to a playoff game were carrying posters around downtown.

But none of them were ticketed for it.

Now lawyers down here at Houston City Hall have agreed to pay just under $25,000 to settle that lawsuit. And city councilmembers are about to vote on an ordinance that would once again make it legal to carry a poster on the streets of Houston.

"And to finally take the law off the books, I think it's something good for everybody in Houston," Kelly said.

After all, it's a free country.