Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness — Briefs and New York Times Article

Today’s New York Times has an article by Adam Liptak about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, the case in which I filed a cert petition recently. In that case, as many readers may recall, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that bars my clients from (among other things) displaying “gruesome images” of aborted fetuses outside a church. The court acknowledged that this was a content-based speech restriction, but said that the injunction passed the “strict scrutiny” required for such restrictions, because it was supposedly narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest in shielding children from such speech. Our petition argues that the Supreme Court should consider the case, because lower courts disagree on whether such content-based restrictions are constitutional.

The briefing is now done — just yesterday I filed the reply brief — and we expect the Court to consider the case in late May or early June. [UPDATE: Today the clerk’s office noted in the docket that the petition would be first considered at the Court’s conference on May 30.] Here is where you can get the material, if you’re interested in the case:

1. The decision below.
2. The petition for certiorari.
3. The amicus brief of free speech scholars (Profs. Floyd Abrams, Amy Adler, Jack Balkin, Vince Blasi, David Cole, Ronald Collins, Alan Dershowitz, Norman Dorsen, Daniel Farber, Kent Greenfield, Seth Kreimer, Sanford Levinson, Robert O’Neil, Martin Redish, Suzanna Sherry, Geoffrey Stone, Nadine Strossen, Jonathan Varat, and James Weinstein).
4. The amicus brief of Religion Clauses scholars (Salam Al-Marayti and Profs. Michael Ariens, Thomas Berg, Zachary Calo, Bob Destro, Carl Esbeck, Marie Failinger, Edward Gaffney, Richard Garnett, Douglas Kmiec, Faisal Kutty, Michael Stokes Paulsen, Michael Perry, Richard Stith, and Lynn Wardle).
5. The amicus brief of historians of art and photography (Profs. Dora Apel, Stephen Eisenman, Renée C. Hoogland, Paul Jaskot, William J. Thomas Mitchell, Terence Smith, John Tagg, and Rebecca Zorach).
6. The amicus brief of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.
7. Respondents’ brief in opposition.
8. Our reply brief.