| |
|
And it's made the Daily Show, good gracious me.
Here's the end-bit from the case I was referring to earlier, (too long to post the whole thing), I'm going to see if my co-worker still has the URL someplace.
A chunk from the beginning regarding the scope:
Although the United States Supreme Court had held that U.S. Const. amend. I did not permit such distribution, the protestors claimed a free speech violation under N.Y. Const. art. I, ยง 8.
So this isn't necessarily a national prescedent, but a state one.
Regarding the mall as private property issue:
The large Mall, which was previously described in detail, can be considered to perform the functional equivalent of a town center and the free flow and dissemination of all ideas would be severely curtailed if plaintiffs were denied access to it. The Mall is thoroughly clothed in the attributes of public or quasi-public property and it may not prohibit persons who wish to disseminate communications by the use of peaceful nonviolent lawful methods.
The Mall encourages people from the community to linger, browse and
congregate in its public areas and it is designed to and does provide
numerous opportunities for public gatherings and events (see Justice
Powell's concurrence in PruneYard Shopping Center v Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 96, supra).
So private, yes, but since we don't have an agora per se, the people deciding the case felt that the mall is not entirely private. Here they discuss the free speech versus private property aspect:
The intrusion by plaintiffs on the right to privacy of the Mall and its tenants is minimal compared to plaintiffs' right to free speech. And a State, in the exercise of its police power, may adopt reasonable
restrictions on private property so long as the restrictions [***15] do not amount to a taking without just compensation or contravene any other Federal constitutional provision.
However, in the PruneYard case (supra), the court permitted the shopping center to "restrict expressive activity by adopting time, place, and manner regulations that will minimize any interference with its commercial [**349] functions" (447 U.S. 74, 83, supra).
Eep. Sorry about the long quoting. Since the Mall has dropped the charges, as Grant mentioned, it's going to come down to a civil case rather than criminal, like cusm said. Can civil prescedent impact a future criminal proceeding? |
|
|
