I blogged about the case a few months ago, and signed an amicus brief supporting review — Colorado v. Hill has created a good deal of uncertainty in lower court decisions, and I think this would be a good opportunity for the Court to clarify matters.
Stuart Buck has much more on the case; I’m not quite as skeptical about the decision as he is, but as the amicus brief points out, Hill has made this area into something of a mess, and the decision below reflects it. The case is definitely worth watching if you’re interested in free speech, and especially in the freedom of speech on public streets, even if you aren’t particularly interested in anti-abortion picketing as such. I think the petition has been relisted for consideration this Friday, so maybe we’ll hear from the Court then.
Arthur Kirkland says:
The collisions at the intersection of expression rights and rude, insensitive zealots — whether Phelps’ cemetery picketers, anti-abortion picketers or those who would shout down invited speakers at campus events — can be particularly nasty, with regrettable casualties.
March 16, 2010, 1:09 pmGuesty says:
This seems like a bad case to challenge Hill. MA’s law is limited to a buffer zone, not a bubble zone. Why not challenge Pittsburgh or Oakland? The real precedent here is Schenck and Madsen and the response brief of the petitioner fumbled on it. Overturning Hill may be a worthy goal, but this isn’t the right test case.
March 16, 2010, 1:18 pmKen Arromdee says:
There’s something I don’t get from this position. It pooh-poohs the existence of a “right to be left alone”. However, it also points out that previous decisions were okay because they only applied to unwilling listeners, not willing ones. So is a right to be left alone supposed to refer to the right of a willing listener to be left alone?
March 16, 2010, 1:55 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Arthur Kirkland,
If it is “rude” and “insensitive” to importune people at the entrances and exits of buildings they really need to get into/out of, I have a serious beef with the local Girl Scouts. (Hey, they might even be “zealots.” How do you tell?)
March 16, 2010, 2:13 pmDilan Esper says:
If it is “rude” and “insensitive” to importune people at the entrances and exits of buildings they really need to get into/out of, I have a serious beef with the local Girl Scouts. (Hey, they might even be “zealots.” How do you tell?)
Actually, it’s rude and insensitive because abortion is a private procedure and a woman who made this weighty choice ought to be able to obtain it without having to run a gantlet of protesters who are sticking their noses into someone else’s business.
That said, the First Amendment allows people to act like jerks, whether it be funeral protesters or abortion protesters. So long as they aren’t physically blocking the clinic entrance or exit, I don’t see any principled reason why they should be silenced, whatever I think of their tactics. Accordingly, I don’t like the cases that have approved buffer zones and the like and I would prefer a bright line rule that allows arrests for blocking ingress and egress but not for anything else.
March 16, 2010, 3:04 pmADF Alliance Alert » “No News Yet on the Cert Petition in the First Amendment Abortion Clinic Picketing Case” says:
[...] Volokh writes at Volokh Conspiracy: “I blogged about the case a few months ago, and signed an amicus brief supporting review — [...]
March 16, 2010, 4:01 pmOperationCounterstrike says:
Right-to-lifers have now established a regular pattern: whenever they suffer a political loss–a presidential election or a supreme court case–they respond by murdering abortion workers.
It is time for counterterror. It is time for someone to start murdering right-to-lifers. ALL right-to-lifers should be considered legitimate targets.
March 16, 2010, 4:35 pmSarcastro says:
OperationCounterstrike: making a point, or just showing that the left can be as crazy as the right if they would only try?
March 16, 2010, 5:08 pmKevin says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/us/12slay.html
Are you a friend of Mr. Drake?
March 16, 2010, 5:43 pmOperationCounterstrike says:
No, Drake shot Pouillon for displaying a gory sign near a high school, not for being a right-to-lifer.
If he had shot him as a protest against terror committed by right-to-lifers, then the shooting would have been justifiable homicide, not murder.
March 16, 2010, 9:29 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If Girl Scouts engaged in some of the conduct I have witnessed from anti-abortion picketers (hectoring people who have plainly indicated a desire to pass rather than debate, shoving disturbing photographs in front of them, aggressively questioning their decency), I would consider them boorish zealots. If Girl Scouts engaged in some of the conduct I have witnessed (in televised reports) from Phelps’ followers, hectoring the grieving and disturbing the mourning with offensive messages, I would consider those Girl Scouts rude and insensitive. If Girls Scouts shouted down any speech from those with whom they disagreed, I would consider them obnoxious.
Perhaps I have been lucky, but I have not seen Girl Scouts act like anti-abortion kooks, Phelps’ freaks or campus censors. In fact, in my experience, exceedingly few people act like anti-abortion nuts or Phelps-following cretins (bonus question: what is the common factor?).
In any event, in all circumstances, I would distinguish the boors and zealots from the civil, reasonable and decent by exercising judgment.
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