THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 17, 1995 TAG: 9510170308
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
The Supreme Court handed anti-abortion activists yet another defeat Monday, rejecting a free-speech appeal by California pickets arrested for parading too near an abortion doctor's home.
The court, acting without comment, turned away arguments that a San Jose ordinance used against 16 anti-abortion demonstrators unlawfully interfered with their freedom of expression.
The ordinance imposes a 300-foot buffer zone in banning demonstrations that target private residences.
Although the action was not a decision and therefore set no precedent, it extended abortion foes' recent high court losing streak.
Earlier this month, the court rejected a sweeping challenge to federal limits on abortion-clinic protests. The justices let stand rulings in a Virginia case that said the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act does not infringe on anyone's freedom of expression or religion.
The court had rejected a similar challenge to the FACE law in June.
In the past year, the court also turned away appeals by anti-abortion activists who say they wrongly are being sued as racketeers in their efforts to stop women from having abortions.
And a year ago Tuesday, the court cleared the way for the jailing of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry because President Clinton was shown a fetus during the 1992 Democratic National Convention.
The court in 1992 ruled that states cannot ban most abortions, reaffirming the constitutional right of abortion it first announced in 1973.
In the abortion-protester case, the San Jose City Council banned ``targeted residential picketing'' in 1993.
That year, 13 anti-abortion pickets were arrested for peaceably walking through the San Jose neighborhood where an abortion doctor lives. Their signs apparently made clear who was the subject of their protest.
Five days later, three additional pickets were arrested for carrying signs across the street from the doctor's home.
No trial has been held for the 16 arrested pickets.
In seeking to scuttle their prosecutions, they relied heavily on a 1988 decision in which the nation's highest court said communities may not ban pickets from marching through residential neighborhoods.
The court in that ruling said communities can ban picketing aimed specifically at someone's home if the picketing takes place solely in front of that home.
In the appeal acted on Monday, the arrested pickets argued that the San Jose ordinance ``is designed to dilute the impact of the picket itself, by making it unlikely that the object of the picket will even know he or she is being picketed, unless he or she happens to come out of the home and look down the street, or possibly around a corner.''
Lawyers for the city urged the justices to reject the appeal, and defended ``the reasonableness of the legislative choice to use a 300-foot buffer zone.'' ILLUSTRATION: OTHER ACTION
In other action Monday, the court:
Let Coral Gables, Fla., impose stringent regulations on the
appearance of newspaper vending machines on the city's public
sidewalks. The regulations had been challenged as free-speech
violations.
Let stand a Clay County, Fla., ban on the sale of alcoholic
beverages on Christmas, attacked as a violation of the required
separation of church and state.
Agreed to decide in a case from Missouri whether labor unions, in
behalf of their members, may sue companies that fail to give the
legally required notice of plant closings or mass layoffs.
Said it will use an Illinois case to decide whether doctors'
privilege against testifying about patients in court can be extended
to psychologists and other mental health workers.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT RULINGS by CNB