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disruption

Radio reporter for conservative show sues for arrest during G-20 summit

donal brown October 3, 2011

A reporter for the conservative “The Alex Jones Show” filed a lawsuit in federal court in response to his arrest covering the 2009 G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. The reporter said he was arrested even though wearing his press credentials and carrying a professional video camera and detained for over 12 hours in cold weather wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. From the Courthouse News Service, September 30, 2011, by Erin Mcauley. Full story

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Free speech: Students guilty of disrupting speech at University of California Irvine

donal brown September 26, 2011

A jury in Irvine, California found 10 Muslim students guilty of disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador at UC Irvine. They were sentenced to three years probation and 56 hours of community service. One legal scholar said the students’ speech directed toward depriving another of First Amendment rights was not protected but felt the criminal misdemeanor charges were excessive after the university had disciplined the students. -db From the Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2011,

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Full federal appeals court rules ban on day laborers unconstitutional

donal brown September 19, 2011

The full panel of the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Redondo Beach ordinance aimed at clearing the streets of day laborers looking for work was too restrictive of free speech. The court wrote, “[The ordiance] is not narrowly tailored because [it] restricts significantly more speech than is necessary, and because the city could have employed various less restrictive alternatives to achieve its goals.” A dissenting judge said the law restrict speech

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Cohen v. California cited as pillar in free speech law

donal brown June 9, 2011

Writing for the First Amendment Center, David L. Hudson Jr. says the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Cohen v. California strengthened free speech by limiting the fighting words doctrine, clarifying the difference between obscenity and profanity, making the case that offensive speech should be protected and warning that governments could ban language representing unpopular views. The case centered on Paul Robert Cohen who in 1968 wore a jacket in the Los Angeles County Courthouse

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California: Family sues Clovis school officials for slandering their son

donal brown May 10, 2011

After Jacob Fleener, on his own time and on his own computer,  logged onto a Facebook page with a parody of his principal, he was taken out of his high school English class to be interrogated by two district police services officers.  The school officials recommended transferring him to an alternative school and gave a letter to his father accusing his son of identity theft. The school officials later relented and agreed to rescind the

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