Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

Explaining the First Amendment | News, Sports, Jobs – Marietta Times

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost had a challenge on his hands in trying to explain First Amendment rights to a school superintendent last week. It is difficult to explain a right so many people believe they understand and yet grossly misinterpret in an era of trolling, triggering and too much time on our hands.

Lebanon City Schools Superintendent Isaac Seever made a mistake when he asked parents and religious leaders not to protest on campus, after he had already supported the First Amendment rights of a group calling itself the After School Satan Club to meet regularly at a Lebanon elementary school.

Yost had to explain to Seever that BOTH groups rights should be supported, after Seever wrote a letter in which he pleaded with parents and the community not to protest on school property because we serve a young student population and some of them may have no idea why adults are gathering in support or opposition on Thursday afternoon.

Yost rightly described the Satan Club as an attention-seeking group, but nonetheless correctly assessed they have a right to meet in the public building. Seever seemed to understand that part. What he missed was others right to protest the move.

The area around the school is a public forum. Public streets, sidewalks, and parks have time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions,' Yost wrote. Content-based restrictions on political speech in a public forum just dont fly.

Such a strong statement from the highest-ranking school official, intended to protect the schools controversial decision, sent to all Lebanon families, in coordination with the Lebanon Police, is just the sort of government policy that chills the exercise of First Amendment rights, even if it fall[s] short of a direct prohibition,' Yost wrote.

Too many people today understand First Amendment rights only when they believe those rights protect THEM. When it comes to the rights of those with whom they disagree, that understanding disappears.

Yost was right to step in, reminding Seever First Amendment rights cannot be invoked only when convenient. Heres hoping Seever and a great many other people learn the lesson.

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Explaining the First Amendment | News, Sports, Jobs - Marietta Times

Ousted O’Fallon councilwoman will continue to fight – St. Louis Public Radio

A councilwoman in OFallon, Missouri, has been impeached and removed after raising questions about the municipalitys now former police chief.

Katie Gatewood, a former law enforcement officer, had learned that the man hired as chief in 2020 had been the subject of controversy at his previous post in Conroe, Texas. According to a report by officers in the Texas Rangers, in 2017, Philip Dupuis responded to a domestic violence call that involved a fellow officer who was one of his friends. According to another officer who responded to the scene, Dupuis seemed more concerned with what would happen to his friend than about the victim.

Gatewoods interest in determining what really happened in Conroe has now led to her ouster. Her attorney, Dave Roland of the Freedom Center of Missouri, said Gatewood made several public records requests and phone calls to learn more information about Dupuis actions. Her colleagues accused her of violating city ordinances by making those inquiries and, last week, voted to impeach and remove her from office.

Those actions have Roland concerned. Gatewood, he said, merely exercised her right to free speech.

It raises incredibly severe First Amendment consequences for the voters, as well as for the elected officials who are being threatened with removal from office, he told St. Louis on the Air.

Roland filed a lawsuit against the city on Gatewoods behalf three days before she was ousted by the council. In it, he argues that the councils actions were retaliatory and that the disciplinary panel against her was biased and that these actions violated her constitutional rights.

Listen: OFallon councilwomans removal raises First Amendment concerns

They said, essentially, that it was illegal for her to ask those questions under city law, Roland said.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig declined to intervene before the impeachment vote. But Roland is hopeful that she will now consider the matter ripe for judicial review. On Wednesdays show, Roland said he plans to approach the federal judge with an updated complaint within a month.

As for Gatewood, her term on the council ends in a little over a year.

We would love to see Katie restored to the council, said Roland, but even if she ultimately is not, we intend to get a ruling as to whether the removal was unconstitutional.

Dupuis resigned from the chiefs job in OFallon last June.

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill and Kayla Drake. Jane Mather-Glass is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.

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Ousted O'Fallon councilwoman will continue to fight - St. Louis Public Radio

State of Alaska pays out for Dunleavy Administration violating First Amendment rights of API doctors – Alaska Native News

On Wednesday, the ACLU of Alaska settled case against Governor Michael Dunleavy and former Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock

ANCHORAGE The ACLU of Alaska and State of Alaska finalized a settlement in Blanford and Bellville v. Dunleavy on Wednesday. The settlement resolves a lawsuit after a federal district court ruled in October that the Dunleavy Administration violated the First Amendment rights of two former Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) doctors who refused to write pledges of loyalty to the administration.

Dr. Anthony Blanford will receive a lump sum of $220,000 and Dr. John Bellville will receive $275,000 for damages, lost wages, and attorneys fees.

Wednesdays settlement marks the end of a years-long battle to defend the First Amendment rights of non-unionized state employees, who were subject to unprecedented demands by the Dunleavy Administration immediately after it took over state leadership in 2018. Exempt and partially exempt employees, including the doctors represented in this case, were told to provide a written pledge of loyalty to Governor Dunleavys political agenda and were told if they didnt, theyd be terminated.

In this country were not supposed to have to sacrifice our freedom of thought in order to keep our jobs. I hope the Governor of Alaska stops doing this to the people he is supposed to be governing, said Dr. Bellville. We elected him with the expectation that he would protect our freedom of speech rights, not force us to give them up under the threat of losing our livelihood.

Neither doctor provided a pledge, as it would have been an ethical violation to put politics before the health of their patients. As such, they were wrongfully terminated.

I hope this clarifies and strengthens the rights of those who work in government and who are not political appointees. No incursion on our basic constitutional rights should go unchallenged, said Dr. Anthony Bellville

The settlement includes a pledge from the Governor and the State of Alaska to refrain from using peoples political affiliation as a litmus test for employment decisions.

We hope that this settlement allows state employees to breathe a little easier knowing the behaviors the governor and his chief of staff engaged in are off-limits for all non-policymaking employees, said Legal Director Stephen Koteff. The court clearly concluded that they violated our clients rights, and this settlement extends the same legal protections to the rest of the State workforce as well.

The State of Alaska must promptly seek legislative appropriation to satisfy the settlement.

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aclu, api, bellville, blanford, dunleavy.settlement.first amendment, loyalty pledge

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State of Alaska pays out for Dunleavy Administration violating First Amendment rights of API doctors - Alaska Native News

11th Circuit Says a Sheriff Violated the First Amendment by Posting Warning Signs on the Lawns of Registered Sex Offenders – Reason

A Georgia sheriff violated the First Amendment when he posted signs on the lawns of registered sex offenders to warn away trick-or-treaters, a federal appeals court said in a recent ruling. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously concluded that the signs amounted to unconstitutional government-compelled speech. The decision strikes a blow against irrational policies that stigmatize sex offenders without any plausible public safety payoffin particular, panicky precautions against the special danger they allegedly pose on Halloween.

Several days before Halloween in 2018, two sheriff's deputies put up cautionary signs in the front yards of all 57 registered sex offenders in Butts County. "WARNING!" the signs said. "NO TRICK-OR-TREATING AT THIS ADDRESS!!" This "community safety message," the signs explained, was "from Butts County Sheriff Gary Long." After trespassing on private property to publicly shame the people living there, the deputies told the affected residents they were not allowed to remove the signs.

In a message on his official Facebook page, Long explained that "my office has placed signs in front of every registered sex offender's house to notify the public that it's a house to avoid." He claimed "Georgia law forbids registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween, to include decorations on their property." As Long later conceded, that was not true.

Long also claimed his signs would protect "the safety of your children." Yet he made no effort to distinguish among registrants based on the crimes they had committed or their state-assessed risk of recidivism. And he admitted that during his six years as sheriff, none of the residents he targeted had been accused of inappropriate contact with children, whether on Halloween or the 364 other days of the year.

Long was making a big show of responding to a mythical menace. Despite widespread warnings about sex offenders luring children with candy on Halloween, a 2009 study of 67,000 sexual crimes against minors found "no increased rate on or just before" the holiday. The authors of that study, which was reported in the journalSexual Abuse, noted that "states, municipalities, and parole departments " nevertheless "have adopted policies banning known sex offenders from Halloween activities, based on the worry that there is unusual risk on these days."

Long's stunt was not just irrational, three of the men he targeted argued in a federal lawsuit; it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment generally prohibits the government from forcing people to promote messages with which they disagree.

In the 1977 case Wooley v. Maynard, for example, the Court held that New Hampshire could not punish two Jehovah's Witnesses for covering up the state motto, "Live Free or Die," on their license plate. New Hampshire, the justices observed, "in effect requires that appellees use their private property as a 'mobile billboard' for the State's ideological message or suffer a penalty." The Court concluded that the state could not "constitutionally require an individual to participate in the dissemination of an ideological message by displaying it on his private property in a manner and for the express purpose that it be observed and read by the public."

In their lawsuit against Long, Butts County residents Corey McClendon, Reginald Holden, and Christopher Reed argued that his warning signs likewise qualified as unconstitutionally compelled speech. U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell, who issued a preliminary injunction against Long in October 2019, initially seemed inclined to agree. But he subsequently dismissed the lawsuit after concluding that Long's signs did not implicate the First Amendment after all.

As Treadwell saw it, the signs did not qualify as compelled speech because passers-by would ascribe the message to Long rather than the residents. Hence McClendon, Holden, and Reed were not forced to "endorse" that message. Treadwell also noted that the plaintiffs were free to contradict Long's warning by posting additional, corrective signs.

In a January 19 ruling, the 11th Circuit concluded that Treadwell's analysis was mistaken. Although he "determined that a compelled government speechclaim requires a finding that a reasonable third party would view the speech as 'endorsed' by the plaintiff," the appeals court said, "Wooley contains no suchrequirement." The "primary harm" in that case, it noted, was "the required use of the plaintiff's property as a 'billboard' for government speech."

The 11th Circuit said Treadwell "also erred by determining that the plaintiffs' ability to place their own yard signs disagreeing with the warning signs could cure the original violation." If that were true, it said, "the Sheriff could place any sign identifying himself as the speaker in any county resident's yard," as long as the resident was allowed to provide a counterpoint with his own sign. Such commandeering of private property for official propaganda would be plainly inconsistent with Wooley.

Since Long's signs qualify as compelled speech, the 11th Circuit said, they have to satisfy "strict scrutiny," meaning they are "narrowly tailored" to serve a "compelling" government interest. And while Long's avowed purpose of protecting children from sexual predators counts as "compelling," the court said, his yard signs are "not narrowly tailored to achieve that goal."

Treadwell noted that McClendon, Holden, and Reed "have, by all accounts, been rehabilitated and are leading productive lives." Nor was there any evidence that the other registrants posed a threat to children.

Long "did not consider whether any of the registrants were classified by Georgia as likely to recidivate," the 11th Circuit noted, and he "even admitted that, since he took office in 2013, he had never had an issue with a registrant having unauthorized contact or reoffending with a minor on Halloween or at any other time." Long, in short, "has not provided any record evidence that the registrants in Butts County actually pose a danger to trick-or-treating children or that these signs would serve to prevent such danger."

Unfortunately, legislators typically show about as much judgment as Long when they target people convicted of sex offenses, who are hounded by myriad requirements and restrictions long after they have completed their sentences. Those policies, which include the registries themselves as well as residence restrictions and a panoply of occupational disqualifications, are likewise supposed to protect public safety. But as with Long's yard signs, there is little evidence that they work as advertised. Instead they impose punishment in the guise of regulation, undermining rehabilitation by demanding perpetual ostracism.

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11th Circuit Says a Sheriff Violated the First Amendment by Posting Warning Signs on the Lawns of Registered Sex Offenders - Reason

Lawsuit: Crackdown on Church Soup Kitchens Violates the First Amendment – Reason

An Oregon church is suing the city of Brookings, Oregon, over limits the local government has imposed on how often it can serve free meals to the poor. A federal lawsuit filed Friday by St. Timothy's Episcopal Church argues that Brookings' regulations on "benevolent meal service" unconstitutionally restrict its religious mission to feed the hungry.

"What we're doing is what churches do. Churches feed people," Rev. Bernie Lindley of St. Timothy's toldReason last year, shortly after the Brookings ordinance passed. "To tell a church that they have to be limited in how they live into the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a violation of our First Amendment right to freely practice our religion."

St. Timothy's has run a soup kitchen several days a week since the 1980s, as have other churches in Brookings. When those churches shut down their meal service during the pandemic, St. Timothy's extended its effort to six days a week.

Seeing more people at the church more days a week didn't sit well with some of the neighbors. They complained in an April 2021 petition to the city government that St. Timothy's soup kitchenand its participation in the city's safe parking program, whereby it lets people live in their cars on the church parking lotwas bringing crime and vagrancy to the area.

In response, the city council passed an ordinance in October that said churches and nonprofits in residentially zoned areas could offer free meal service only two days a week. And to do that, they needed special conditional use permits.

On paper, this was actually a liberalization of Brookings' zoning rules. Because state health authorities regulate soup kitchens like restaurants, and restaurants are a commercial use, soup kitchens were technically prohibited in the city's residential zones. And all of Brookings' churches are located in residentially zoned areas.

City Manager Janelle Howard says the ordinance was intended as a compromise: It legalized technically prohibited soup kitchens while mollifying residents' complaints about the nuisances they caused.

In practice, though, the churches' charitable work had been unregulated before. The ordinance's actual effect was to pave the way for a crackdown.

Lindley and St. Timothy's participated in early talks with the city about its soup kitchen ordinance, but they dropped out after it became clear that Brookings intended to limit the number of days the church could offer meals.

The ordinance became enforceable last week, potentially opening St. Timothy's up to fines and other sanctions. To prevent that, the church and the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

The complaint argues that Brookings' soup kitchen regulations violate the U.S. and Oregon constitutions' protections of free expression and the free exercise of religion. It also claims that the regulations' vague description of "benevolent meal service" and unclear potential sanctions violate the U.S. Constitution's due process protections.

Lastly, it argues that Brookings is violating a federal law limiting state and local governments from adopting land use regulations that impose a "substantial burden" on "religious exercise."

"We've been serving our community here for decades and picking up the slack where the need exists and no one else is stepping in," Lindley declared in a statement. "We have no intention of stopping now and we're prepared to hold fast to our beliefs. We won't abandon the people of Brookings who need our help, even when we're being threatened."

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Lawsuit: Crackdown on Church Soup Kitchens Violates the First Amendment - Reason