protest rights

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last week that protestors don't have the right to demonstrate closer to the U.S. Supreme Court than the sidewalk out front, The Washington Post's Robert Barnes reports. A law forbids demonstrations on the high court's grounds on the theory that closer protests could lead to the perception that the justices are swayed by public pressure.

U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote that the Supreme Court's plaza "is designed as an extension of the court ... and restrictions on protests there need only be reasonable and viewpoint-neutral."

The Justice Department has issued its first guidelines for the use of domestic drones by law enforcement, saying that the use of drones must not violate civil rights or the right to privacy, the Associated Press reports. The department said drones can't be used just to monitor protests and other activities protected by the constitution.

During the current session of the U.S. Supreme Court, protesters have interrupted oral arguments multiple times, and they have been arrested for it. The Legal Times' Zoe Tillman reports that some of the protesters are arguing that a prohibiting "a 'harangue or oration' or other 'loud' language at the high court violates the First Amendment." In particular, their lawyer is arguing that the law is overbroad and does not advance any compeling governmental interest.
 

The New York Times' Adam Liptak writes that corporations, rather than protesters and civil rights activists, are becoming the main beneficiaries of the First Amendment. Harvard law professor John C. Coates IV has conducted a study finding that "'corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment.'" Coates found that First Amendment cases involving businesses have risen before the U.S. Supreme Court, while First Amendment cases involving individuals have fallen.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the First Amendment rights of protesters to convene at the funerals of soldiers and at abortion clinics, The New York Times' Adam Liptak notes in a Sidebar column. But the right of protest does not extend to the plaza outside the Supreme Court. The D.C. Circuit has heard arguments on whether the law banning protests on the plaza can comport with the First Amendment.

"People with power and connections can use the plaza" for commercial or professional filming or when attorneys and parties address the media on the plaza immediately after oral argument before the justices, Liptak writes. But ordinary protesters cannot.

The Washington Post reports that police in Ferguson, Missouri, have accelerated their efforts to suppress peaceful protests about Michael Brown's killing by a white police officer several weeks ago: "A Washington Post review of county and state arrest records, and interviews with Justice Department officials, Ferguson and St. Louis County police chiefs, dozens of protesters and several civil rights officials reveal that: Hundreds of protesters have been arrested since August for violating unwritten rules and committing minor offenses, such as failure to disperse or unlawful assembly, and for violating a noise ordinance. Many have been taken to jail without being told what charges they may face and are often released without any paperwork. For weeks, officers employed a 'five-second rule' under which any protester who stopped walking was subject to arrest — a policy ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge this week." Protesters also complain that their jail time is increasing and bail amounts for their release are increasing.

After protests started following Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Mo., by a police officer, police told protestors they had to keep walking and they couldn't keep still. Now U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry has issued a preliminary injunction to stop police from enforcing a practice she found to be unconstitutional, CNN reports: "In some cases, officers told protesters they couldn't stand still for more than five seconds. In others, the protesters were told they were walking too slowly."

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act chills animals rights demonstrations, writes Jamie Schuman of Supreme Court Brief (the federal law prohibits anyone from intentionally causing the loss of money or property to an institution using animals). While the court ruled in Clapper v. Amnesty International that harm must be "certainly impending" for plaintiffs to get standing, the Center for Constitutional Rights, counsel for the five animal-rights activists bringing the challenge, argues the activists have standing because they have an objectively reasonable fear that the government will use the law to punish their speech, Schuman further reports. CCR wants the Supreme Court to grant certiorari, vacate the lower court opinion and remand the case without oral argument as the high court did in another pre-enforcement challenge to a criminal statute. The justices declined to apply Clapper in the case, Schuman also reports.

Four people, including an attorney working as a legal observer, were awarded $185,000 this week for being arrested wrongfully during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City, Reuters reports. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan already ruled the arrests were illegal; the trial was held to determine the amount of damages.

The U.S. Supreme Court "appeared likely on Wednesday to protect Secret Service agents from being sued for violating the free speech rights of demonstrators. During arguments in Wood v. Moss, justices of all stripes seemed ready to defer to the Secret Service's need to make split-second decisions to protect the president, without being second-guessed in court," Supreme Court Brief's Tony Mauro reported.