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Sig, all you have to say is that the courts have clearly upheld the rights of folks like Bill Neel to have dissenting signs along the causeway of a presidential motorcade. We have found 'case law'.

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Originally posted by Hero:


I prosecuted some sign waver types protesting abortion at one of the City's fairs back in June. Which is odd...because the Abortion Festival is in August...come on down next year...good food, good music...

I also prosecuted a father who was demonstrating against his child support payments by marching with a sign outside his ex's house (its actually my all time favorite case). He was on the sidewalk, had a nice sign too, but still it violated the Protection Order she had, so I sent him to jail for 10 days. He argued free speech too. Turns out free speech does not include the right to violate a protection order. Had a similar case of a guy who gave his wife the finger and then argued free speech. Same result.

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Originally posted by rue:
Just my take - if you are going to restrict people with anti-signs in a public venue (anti -Bush -war -pollution -etc) you should ALSO restrict people with pro-signs. The same thing goes for t-shirts and other non-violent forms of expression. Otherwise you're censoring content.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
But wait- then things would be fair.
Hmmmm. Gotta think about this one...

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Originally posted by Hero:

Its only fair to the protester. Its not fair to the speaker. Both have an equal right to be heard, neither has a right to interfere with the other.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by leadb:
There were about 220 arrests during the protests with only 4 convictions. ' That seems like a pretty poor ratio.

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Actually its right on the money. The reason is that, as a Prosecutor, I'm more concerned with real criminals then liberal sign wavers. Sure, if they cause a real problem or resist the officers, or somebody gets out of hand...then its game on and I'm sending them to jail.

But if its just a silly little protest thing without the aggrevating factors then what's the harm? The person was arrested, the event is over, and unless the President is coming back again, which is unlikely since he averages a trip to this area once every couple hundred years...then we call it even (usually the Defendant pays court costs).

Its not so much that we're being nice. We just don't want the paperwork.

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{...}
I also prosecuted a father who was demonstrating against his child support payments by marching with a sign outside his ex's house {...}
H

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Originally posted by SignyM:
I don't see where H is coming from at all. A person gets up to ask a long-winded question in a strident tone of voice. He is hustled out and, on the way, tasered. A person stands on a curbside with a sign and is hustled away.

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Over time, and in some instances, Hero might be talked down from his knee-jerk response, but his FIRST response is always "hang 'em high".

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I think we are arguing about a very narrow subject. Generally a person protesting a motorcade is not going to be hussled away. It simply does not happen except when it does. The only occaisions in which it might happen is if there is a security concern.

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