A town ordinance that limits political signs on private property to 21 days before an election and five days after violates the First Amendment, a federal judge found.

Southern District Judge Kenneth Karas, ruling in Marin v. Town of Southeast, 14-cv-2094, blocked the Town of Southeast from enforcing a 2014 ordinance that treated political signs as different from other types of signs.

Karas ruled in favor of Carla Marin, a Carmel lawyer and Putnam County Republican Committee member, who was charged in 2011 under an old version of the law for posting a “temporary political sign on her property more than five consecutive days after a political primary.”