Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 22, 1994 TAG: 9401220101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Acting on an appeal from anti-abortion activists, the Supreme Court said it would review a Florida state judge's order barring protesters from "congregating, picketing, patrolling [or] demonstrating" on the sidewalk or street next to a clinic in Melbourne, Fla.
Judge Robert McGregor imposed the order creating a "36-foot buffer zone" around the Aware Woman's Center after hundreds of Operation Rescue activists had regularly gathered there and shouted "child killer" and "murderer" at doctors, nurses and patients trying to enter.
Attorneys for the protesters say the judge's order goes too far and violates the First Amendment because it bars peaceful protest on a public sidewalk.
Attorneys for the clinic counter that no one has a right to harass and intimidate patients and doctors, even on a public sidewalk.
The case, which will be argued in April and decided by July, is likely to yield an important ruling clarifying the line between constitutionally protected protest and illegal intimidation and harassment.
Despite more than a decade of growing protests near abortion facilities, the Supreme Court has avoided a broad ruling on abortion and the First Amendment. In a narrowly worded opinion in 1988, the court said cities can restrict groups of protesters from gathering on a residential street directly in front of the home of an abortion doctor.
Otherwise, the court before now has passed up repeated chances to confront the issue.
Anti-abortion leaders have maintained that their movement deserves the same protection from federal courts that was given civil rights protesters in the South, who relied on marches, sit-ins and boycotts to change discriminatory laws.
The justices had little choice but to decide the Florida case since two appellate courts had issued conflicting rulings on McGregor's order.
In October, a U.S. appeals court in Atlanta said it was unconstitutional because it "appears to criminalize various acts of peaceful protest."
Eight days later, in a separate appeal, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled it did not violate the Constitution, saying: "While the First Amendment confers on each citizen a powerful right to express oneself, it give the picketer no boon to jeopardize the health, safety and rights of others."
The Aware Woman's Center is the lone abortion facility in a generally conservative center near Florida's Kennedy Space Center, and it became a magnet for anti-abortion protesters last year.
by CNB