Last month, the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of six Ohio police officers sued for unlawful arrest and retaliation against the free expression of protected speech.
In 2016, Michael Wood entered a county fair sporting an uncensored t-shirt that read “F**k the Police.” Within a few hours, six…
“Love letters” will live a little longer in Oregon real estate transactions after the federal district court in Portland issued a preliminary injunction on a new state law banning the practice.
In a real estate market where multiple buyers compete for seemingly every home, creativity can afford an edge. So it is that real estate…
Allegations of a politically motivated lay-off were the subject of a recent U.S. District Court decision out of Gary, Indiana. In Moore v. Calumet Township of Lake City, Plaintiff Marsha Moore filed suit against Calumet Township of Lake County and the Calumet Township Trustee, Kimberly Robinson, claiming that Defendants violated her First Amendment right to…
Before Halloween in 2018, the Butts County Sheriff’s Office placed signs in the front yards of registered sex offenders in the County, warning against trick-or-treating there. The next year, three registered sex offenders sued to enjoin County Sheriff Gary Long from placing the signs again, claiming that they constituted compelled speech in violation of the…
University City, Missouri, home to Washington University and the Loop, a buzzy restaurant and theater district bordering the City of St. Louis, recently survived a challenge to its ordinance prohibiting activities that obstructed sidewalks and walkways. That victory followed litigation against an earlier ordinance that had prohibited a much broader, vaguer set of activities, like…
It was only a few weeks ago that the winter holidays were upon us, and with them came the usual seasonal festivities: ice skating, caroling, or perhaps a ride on a horse-drawn carriage. But to animal rights activists in Frederick, Maryland, horse-drawn carriage rides are not a source of holiday cheer, but rather a form…
One of the trickier aspects of First Amendment jurisprudence has always been deciding whether and when conduct receives constitutional protection. Regulations that involve words or speech are easy enough. But does the First Amendment protect the heap of garbage your neighbor piled in his front lawn to protest the city’s tardy trash collection? (Probably, but…
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the City of Austin, Texas’s petition for writ of certiorari in a case that may determine the legal fate of states’ and local governments’ efforts to restrict billboard advertising.
In the case, which we reported on previously, Austin denied permits to two billboard companies that were seeking…
Some things go together: funnel cakes, summer crowds, and street vendors, for instance. The prospect of eternal damnation, on the other hand, tends to dampen the mood. So it was that several Davenport, Iowa police officers escorted street preacher Cory Sessler out of the city’s long-running “Street Fest,” leaving him to condemn the throngs from…
In a recent case out of Fall River, Massachusetts, the state supreme court found a panhandling law so riddled with constitutional problems as to require entire invalidation. Plaintiffs, each a homeless person who sometimes panhandled to meet their basic needs, sought declaratory and injunctive relief against a state law that criminalized signaling to a motor…
