Don Goldhamer and Robin Schirmer were arrested in 2006 at the Taste of Chicago after refusing a police order to move into a designated protest zone.
They were opposing military recruitment — handing out leaflets and speaking to people near a recruiting booth — when they were arrested for disorderly conduct, which is defined as three or more people committing acts “likely to cause substantial hard or serious inconvenience, annoyance or harm.”
Prosecutors quickly dropped the charges against them. The activists sued the city, saying they were wrongfully arrested. And they sought an injunction barring the city from enforcing the ordinance.
A U.S. District Court judge granted the injunction.
But a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Goldhamer and Schirmer don’t have legal standing to challenge the law because it was wrongly applied to them. The law is normally applied to dangerous conduct such as throwing rocks and firecrackers at the police, the court said. The activists didn’t demonstrate a pattern of the ordinance being misused to stifle free speech as it was in their case, the court added.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling overturns U.S. District Judge John Grady’s 2009 finding that the ordinance violates free speech and is unconstitutionally vague.
Goldhamer and Schirmer have already settled with the city over their wrongful arrest claim. In January, the city agreed to pay them $47,500, records show.
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