The Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver. Source: CGL Companies.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve reported on a case involving pamphleteering activities on the plaza that lies outside of the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse here in our home city of Denver, Colorado.  Things have gotten interesting again, as the Tenth Circuit last month reversed a decision of the federal district court finding the City and County of Denver in contempt following its decision to arrest an individual for distributing literature on the plaza.

We’ll first bring our readers back up to speed.  This case involved the question of whether a group could lawfully distribute literature about jury nullification on the plaza.  The Second Judicial District, a state court, prohibited demonstrations and literature distribution on the plaza.  The plaza area is owned by Denver, and the state court is a tenant on the property.  Denver Police arrested a member of the pamphleteering group, which resulted in a First Amendment claim against the city and the state court.  Denver stipulated that the plaza was a public forum, and further stipulated that it would not enforce the prohibitions on literature distribution, but the Second Judicial District disagreed with Denver’s position.  The federal court then entered a preliminary injunction against the Second Judicial District, and dismissed Denver from the case.  A prior Tenth Circuit order upheld the preliminary injunction.  On a motion for permanent injunction, the court agreed with the Second Judicial District and found that the plaza was not a traditional public forum. Continue Reading In Another Chapter of Denver Courthouse Plaza Battle, Tenth Circuit Reverses Contempt Order

A recent discovery dispute over Madison, Wisconsin’s revised sign codes recently provided a reminder regarding the evidence that is and isn’t relevant in a Free Speech challenge.  And let’s not bury the lede: a legislator’s private motivations for amending the sign code, the court concluded, don’t matter.

A only-in-Wisconsin billboard. Photo credit: Environmental Protection Agency, public domain

Adams Outdoor Advertising, a billboard operator, brought a facial and as-applied First Amendment challenge to Madison’s sign code after the city’s 2017 overhaul severely restricted off-site advertising.  The challenge itself is ongoing and Adams Outdoor contends that Reed v. Town of Gilbert’s test for content-based regulations—and not Central Hudson’s more permissive test for commercial speech regulations—should invalidate Madison’s new approach.

In the hopes of bolstering that contention, Adams Outdoor submitted discovery requests for information about the purpose of the 2017 amendment and, in particular, legislators’ personal motivations for adopting it.  The city refused to provide the information, invoking legislative privilege, and the dispute eventually reached the court. Continue Reading No Discovery on Legislators’ Personal Motivations for Sign Code Overhaul, says District Judge

The advertisement that the Freethought Society wished to place on Lackawanna County buses. Source: ACLU of Pennsylvania.

In a decision last month, an atheist group lost its challenge to an advertising policy promulgated by the transit system for Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, COLTS, that prohibited, among other things, religious messages.  Following a trial, a federal district court found in favor of the transit agency, on the grounds that its advertising space was a limited public forum and the policy was viewpoint neutral.  The decision follows several recent decisions that have found transit advertising policies constitutional.

Beginning in 2012, the atheist group, the Freethought Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania, sought to place advertising on buses owned by COLTS.  The Society’s initial advertising attempt was blocked by COLTS on the ground that its advertisement was controversial, in violation of the agency’s advertising policy.  The transit agency rejected similar advertisements submitted in 2013 and 2014 as well, even after COLTS changed its advertising policy to more explicitly prohibit political or religious messages. Continue Reading In Another Transit Advertising Case, Federal District Court Upholds “No Religion” Policy

Although this blog often focuses on the First Amendment’s Free Speech clause, we occasionally wander into the First Amendment cases involving religious exercise as well.  A Hand of Hope Pregnancy Resource Center v. City of Raleigh, emerged from Raleigh’s determination that Hand of Hope could not operate a religious pregnancy counseling center in a residential zone district, and therefore offers a bit of both.

Hand of Hope had previously operated a pregnancy resource center in Raleigh, where it offered clients both spiritual guidance and reproductive health information.  Its services also included pregnancy testing and Continue Reading Religious Pregnancy Counseling Organization Barely Survives Summary Judgment on Religious Land Use Claim

In mid-July, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s entry of summary judgment for the City of Shaker Heights, Ohio and one of its police officer co-defendants in a sign case arising out of animosity between two neighbors in the wealthy Cleveland-area suburb.

Upon the belief that her neighbors, Richard and Elizabeth Minkowetz, were committing acts of vandalism against her property, Gladys Wilson began posting signs in her windows facing the Minkowetzes’ property.  Examples of the signs’ messages include “nasty lil twit,” “Peeping Tom Exposed,” “Zoomed Zapped and Snapped,” and “Thur. 10:50.”  After the Minkowetzes complained to the city about the signs, the city dispatched one of its police officers to Wilson’s home, and she was later charged with disorderly conduct.  In response, Wilson filed claims against the city, one of its police officers, and its prosecutor under Section 1983 alleging, among other things, a First Amendment retaliation claim.  She also alleged malicious prosecution and equal protection claims. Continue Reading In a “Nasty” Neighborhood Sign Dispute, Shaker Heights, Ohio Prevails

Under Lexington’s ordinance, newspapers cannot be delivered to residential driveways. Image source: CBS San Francisco.

In a case that we previously reported on last winter, a federal district court in Kentucky ruled last month that Lexington’s law restricting the locations where newspapers may be delivered meets intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment.  Lexington’s ordinance requires that newspapers be delivered on porches, attached to doors, placed in mail slots, left in distribution boxes, or personally delivered.

The facts of the case can be found in our January 2018 post on the case of Lexington H-L Services, Inc. v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.  After the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction in the case, the parties proceeded to summary judgment briefing on the understanding that there were no genuine disputes as to material fact.

In ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the court first found that the restriction on the locations where newspaper can be delivered is content neutral:  the regulation is not dependent upon the content of the newspaper, but simply identifies the locations on private property where a newspaper may be delivered.  Moreover, the court observed that the city’s goals in reducing litter, visual blight, and public safety were content neutral in purpose.  The court went on to find that the restrictions on delivery were narrowly tailored to these goals. Continue Reading On Summary Judgment, District Court Upholds Lexington Newspaper-Distribution Law

Last December, we reported on a federal district court’s denial of a motion for preliminary injunction relating to the Archdiocese of Washington’s unsuccessful efforts to post Christmas-season advertising on transit vehicles owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.  Unfortunately for the Archdiocese, Christmas did not come in July either.  Last week, the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.

The facts of the case are available on our post regarding the district court’s decision.

On appeal, the appellate court (which included as a panelist Supreme Court nominee Judge Kavanaugh) agreed with the district court.  First, the court agreed that the advertising space on WMATA transit vehicles constitutes a non-public forum, where the government can exercise greater control over content yet must adhere to requirements of viewpoint neutrality and reasonableness.  In so ruling, the D.C. Circuit joins a majority of federal appeals courts that have now ruled that transit advertising spaces are non-public fora. Continue Reading No Christmas in July for Archdiocese of Washington; Appeals Court Affirms Denial of Preliminary Injunction

We pause from our usually scheduled programming to announce a webinar from our friends at the Planning and Law Division of the American Planning Association…

The Planning and Law Division of the American Planning Association is pleased to host the upcoming webcast Rules of the Game: A Framework for Fair & Effective Zoning Hearings on July 26, 2018.  Registration for individuals is $20 for PLD members and $45 for non-members. Registration for two or more people at one computer is $140.

This webinar will cover the legal requirements for public hearings, including constitutional due process considerations, and provide tips on how to more effectively manage these hearings.

Speakers include David Silverman, AICP and Kurt Asprooth of Ancel Glink in Chicago.

Register here

CM | 1.50 | Law

CLE 1.50 through Illinois State Bar

Buttons like the one above would have been prohibited from polling places under the Minnesota law. Source: Ken Rudin’s Political Junkie.

Tea Partiers in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, as well as those hipsters who like to wear vintage political t-shirts (think “Nixon’s the One!” or “LBJ All the Way!”) on election day scored a big victory at the Supreme Court last week.  In a 7-2 decision, the Court held that a Minnesota law prohibiting individuals from wearing or displaying certain types of political attire was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.  The Minnesota law in question also prohibited displays of campaign materials within 100 feet of a polling place and the distribution of political materials to be worn at a polling place.

The law was challenged by a Tea Party group, and was upheld by lower courts.

Applying the public forum doctrine, the Supreme Court found in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky that the interior of a polling place constitutes a nonpublic forum.  In a nonpublic forum, speech regulations must be viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purposes of the forum.  While the Court observed that Minnesota could constitutionally prohibit political attire, buttons, and other paraphernalia from the interior of a polling place, it found that the law in question failed the reasonableness standard.  The Court noted, for example, that the statute failed to define the term “political,” such that voters and those enforcing the law had no standards by which to determine what attire would pass muster.  While local polling places had been issued some guidance on the issue, the Court found that the guidance similarly lacked clarity regarding what constituted political speech.  The Court observed that other states, including California and Texas, had much clearer laws that narrowed the class of prohibited speech to that which advocates for or against a candidate or ballot measure appearing on the ballot. Continue Reading Supreme Court to Minnesotans: Wear Your Political Buttons, Badges, and T-Shirts to the Polls

Tents along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Source: Chicago Tribune.

Earlier this month, in a case challenging the denial of permits to erect a homeless “tent city” in front of a former elementary school in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, a federal magistrate judge dismissed the organizers’ First Amendment claim.  While one count of the plaintiffs’ complaint will move forward, the order dismisses all of the plaintiffs’ federal claims.

Uptown Tent City Organizers and its leader, Andy Thayer, sought a permit from the City of Chicago to establish a tent city in the former elementary school site.  In 2016, several homeless people had resided at the site, but the city fenced it off and the homeless people moved to various locations under viaducts along the city’s famed Lake Shore Drive.  The plaintiff filed claims in state court challenging the city’s denial of the permit, and the city removed the case to federal court.  The plaintiffs lost a motion for preliminary injunction, and subsequently amended their complaint to add First Amendment free speech and assembly, Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment, Fourth Amendment illegal seizure, Fifth Amendment taking, and various state law claims.  Continue Reading Homeless “Tent City” Is Not Expressive Conduct Protected by the First Amendment, Says Federal Court