Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics

“Heckler’s Veto”: Sixth Circuit Rules Against Wayne County In Silencing Christians At Arab Festival

250px-US-CourtOfAppeals-6thCircuit-SealThere is an interesting en banc ruling out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit where the court held that Christian evangelists who were “preaching hate and denigration to a crowd of Muslims” are entitled to damages for being ejected from participation as protesters in the 2012 Arab International Festival. The case raises the long-standing concern over the “heckler’s veto” where a speaker is silenced to appease an angry mob or crowd. The case is Bible Believers v. Wayne County, 2015 FED App. 0258P (6th Cir. 2015)

In his famous law review article coining this term, Harry Kalven observed “If the police can silence the speaker, the law in effect acknowledges a veto power in hecklers who can, by being hostile enough, get the law to silence any speaker of whom they do not approve.” See Harry Kalven, Jr., The Negro and the First Amendment 140 (Ohio St. Univ. Press 1965).

The Sixth Circuit clearly agreed. The Court detailed how in a prior year, the Christians were forced to end their protests. In anticipation of similar efforts by Deputy Chief Mike Jaafar and others involved in the earlier crackdown, the Bible Believers wrote to reconfirm that they would not be targeted to appease the crowd. They received a letter largely denying their account of the prior protests and reminding them that the police would act to stop any potential violence.

In the 2012 protests, the Christians would again be surrounded by irate Muslims and the police would again remove the Christians to avoid any violence. Muslims were incensed by one Christian carrying a severed pig’s head on a spike in a belief it would keep the Muslims at bay. Another declared that “You believe in a prophet who is a pervert,” and, “God will reject you.” Muslims counter-protesters started to take violent action like throwing objects at the Bible Believers.

In summary, the Bible Believers attended the 2012 Festival for the purpose of exercising their First Amendment rights by spreading their anti-Islam religious message. When a crowd of youthful hecklers gathered around the Bible Believers, the police did nothing. When the hecklers began throwing bottles and other garbage at the Bible Believers, a WCSO officer intervened only to demand that the Bible Believers stop utilizing their megaphone to amplify their speech. Virtually absent from the video in the record is any indication that the police attempted to quell the violence being directed toward the Bible Believers by the lawless crowd of adolescents. Despite this apparent lack of effort to maintain any semblance of order at the Festival, each time the police appeared on the video—to reprimand the use of the Bible Believers’ megaphone, to suggest that the Bible Believers had the “option to leave” the Festival, to trot by on horseback while doing next to nothing, and to expel the Bible Believers from the Festival under threat of arrest—the agitated crowd became subdued and orderly simply due the authoritative presence cast by the police officers who were then in close proximity. Only once is an officer seen removing one of the bottle-throwing teens. Israel, when faced with the prospect of being arrested for disorderly conduct, observed, “and you would think we would be complaining, but we’re not.” (R. 28-A, Raw Festival Footage, Time: 00:55:16). The Bible Believers were thereafter escorted from the Festival and ticketed by a large group of WCSO officers for removing the license plate from their van.

It is clear that the police were targeting the speakers rather than those who were threatening to take violent actions or actually taking such actions in response to their exercise of free speech. The Bible Believers were being blamed for “inciting” others — a dangerous standard that would gut the first amendment. Indeed, we have seen the erosion of free speech in the West based on such notions of incitement This includes some efforts in the United States by groups to ban free speech in subway advertisements and other forums.

The Sixth Circuit refused to join this trend:

Notably, a heckler’s veto effectuated by the police will nearly always be susceptible to being reimagined and repackaged [*63] as a means for protecting the public, or the speaker himself, from actual or impending harm. After all, if the audience is sufficiently incensed by the speaker’s message and responds aggressively or even violently thereto, one method of quelling that response would be to cut off the speech and eject the speaker whose words provoked the crowd’s ire. Our point here is that before removing the speaker due to safety concerns, and thereby permanently cutting off his speech, the police must first make bona fide efforts to protect the speaker from the crowd’s hostility by other, less restrictive means.

For me, the role of Corporation Counsel in this flagrantly unconstitutional action is the most disturbing. The Sixth Circuit noted “Corporation Counsel informed the Bible Believers by way of letter that ‘under state law and local ordinances, individuals can be held criminally accountable for conduct which has the tendency to incite riotous behavior or otherwise disturb the peace.'” That position is not only in direct conflict with core constitutional cases and principles, it would negate much of our free speech values in the United States. Fortunately, the Sixth Circuit has not lost sight of those values but it is a dangerous thing to have key police and lawyers in Wayne County who maintain such ill-informed and abusive views.

487 thoughts on ““Heckler’s Veto”: Sixth Circuit Rules Against Wayne County In Silencing Christians At Arab Festival”

    1. po – map is fascinating except it ignores the attacks on Israel by the Arabs.

      1. Paul, since we are in the mood for answering questions, which attacks, which Arabs?

        THall, didn’t Reagan raise taxes 11 times?
        Fascinating that whatever the conservatives laud Reagan for is actually the opposite of what they claim their party to be about. They sure are the party of confusion.

          1. Paul, did you…did you just quote the victor’s history as fact?
            I’ll pretend it was not so.

            If indeed it was so, I’ll offer this challenge to the propagandist narrative, which you fell for so easily you musta been looking to be deceived! You are welcome, friend!

            http://www.ussliberty.org/orenbook.htm

                1. po – so the Israelis are not Jewish? It was other Arabs who took over Israel?

                  1. Paul, are you saying that all Jews are Israelis?
                    Thank you for acknowledging that at least someone took over Palestine!

      2. Paul C. Schulte wrote: “… map is fascinating except it ignores the attacks on Israel by the Arabs.”

        It also ignores the fact that the Palestinian State never existed before Israel. Until the United Nations came up with the two State plan, Palestinians were just uncivilized tribal farmers. Now they are expected to act like civilized world leaders and it just doesn’t work when a great majority of them were or are savage terrorists (e.g., Yasser Arafat, Hamas, etc.).

        1. David, let’s take one point at time:

          1- If your standard is that there was no state in palestine by the time the Zionists came, then, according to that standard, the Native Americans had no right to their land, and the British’s war on the colonies was justified. Thsi is Palestine in 1896. Muslism, Jews and Christians lived in peace.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vaIK8wlAl0
          What changed? Who came? Who waged war against the locals, expelling most? Who committed terrorism?

          2- You obviously do not know about the Stern gang, whose acts of terrorism enabled Zionism to establish itself. Speaking of terrorism, what do you call the bombing of the USS liberty by Israel?

          1. po – you seem to see Native Americans as a unified whole, but that is not true. Some tribes pushed other tribes off what would have been considered their tribal lands. Comanches are a good example.

          2. po wrote: “If your standard is that there was no state in palestine by the time the Zionists came, then, according to that standard, the Native Americans had no right to their land, and the British’s war on the colonies was justified. Thsi is Palestine in 1896. Muslism, Jews and Christians lived in peace.”

            The analogy with Native Americans is actually a pretty good one. They were tribal groups, often at war with each other. They were savage by English standards. In warfare, they killed women and children mercilessly. Many of their tribes did not have the concept of private ownership of property, and did not have a written language. They had no notion of receiving immigrants into their communities, but instead fought and killed to keep them out.

            As for Muslim, Jews, and Christians living in peace in the Middle East prior to the UN two State solution, do you really believe that? I don’t believe that for a minute. Maybe I misunderstood you.

            po wrote: “Speaking of terrorism, what do you call the bombing of the USS liberty by Israel?”

            No.

            1. David
              i will leave out your misinformation about native Americans for another time.

              The population in palestine in 1896 was composed of all 3 faiths. That’s a fact. Did you watch the video links i provided? I guess not. Most of the population could read and write, if not in Arabic then in Hebrew. If the Palestinians Muslims were savages, then naturally, the Jewish and Christian palestinians were also savages. Naturally, right?
              There was land distribution and land ownership, there was business ownership and social structure, including an administration. And all of that changed when the zionists arrived.
              It fits your narrative that Muslims were always terrorists and savages, willing to rape and kill at any moment. It exposes your ignorance or bias, or both.

              I noticed you ignored everything else I said about jewish terrorism… and am sure you did not read the text I provided. Yep, best way to remain willfully blind and ignorant.
              If the attack on the UUS liberty was no act of terrorism, what was it?

              “The myth of Israel’s right to Palestine as well as their illegal and brutal U.S. supported Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has finally been exposed and shattered by a Zionist Generals’ son, Miko Peled ~ who reveals in his book that Israel’s rabid Zionists are very similar to America’s rabid neo-conservatives (YOU and RUben, David) and that the only hope for the region depends on a bottom up American public outcry for human rights and democracy to replace the current Israel Garrison state of subjugation and apartheid”

              1. po, for some reason you have amnesia about the history of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, the rise of Islam, the Christian Crusades, and the Ottoman empire. It seems you view no conflict until 1898. As for the propaganda pieces you have been sharing, they are not new or revelatory. If you read between the lines, you will see many common threads between the propaganda that comes from the Palestinian perspective (including people like Miko Peled) and that which comes from the Zionists. Even in the video you linked to, Miko says that the Israelis have a military force and are well trained whereas the Palestinians even to this day do not have a military force. Such is indicative of what I said before, that the Palestinian people are not civilized, organizing into a nation, but are mostly tribal in their thinking, operating more like the Native Americans did in North America. One thing that does unite them against Jews is the same Anti-Semitic hatred that Hitler had. It is basically a biological law that one side will outcompete the other, as what happened with the Native Americans. My perspective is that civilization should and will win.

                Following is a video that might help bring some balance to your rather slanted view of history.

                https://youtu.be/_ZY8m0cm1oY

  2. Of course, some adults are quite similar to children, so it doesn’t take much work to understand them. What motivates them. Their insecurities. Their issues.

  3. When I’m investigating someone, I put together background information. And, w/ that information, and w/ my professional observations, I try and visualize them as children. It helps me understand them as adults.

  4. Paul C. Schulte
    1, October 30, 2015 at 9:22 pm
    po – still waiting on your answer.
    ————————–
    Paul, still waiting on your question!

  5. Part of being a positive person was being blessed w/ loving parents who instilled a work ethic, a belief in God, a desire to do right, the need to be honest and loving. That creates true self esteem. And, that is the key to a happy life, being married for 38 years, having loving kids.

  6. This one guy who has asked me 150-200 questions w/o me answering, who constantly talks to me w/o me replying, usually gets off work about now. Sometimes, when people, even poorly educated ones, see their aberrant behavior in others, they change their behavior. Being a positive person, I am hoping that’s the case. I hold out little hope for the aforementioned quixotic gent.

  9. I didn’t move on, I got tired of waiting for a reasoned response from you, Nick, just like Steve did in waiting for you to supply some factual evidence to back up your low opinion of Zinn. I think we both realize you’re not capable

    I await what I trust will an intelligent response from Jack once he logs back on and gets up to speed.

  11. Well now, for what it’s worth, but Dan Flynn, the author of that Front Page Mag article, also published a book entitled, Why the Left Hates America. Forgive me for saying, but the Left does hate America, so from the start I’m skeptical about what Flynn has to say about Zinn.

    But I’ll give him a read, see what he says.

    Thanks

  13. Good to see the people w/ a 4th grade understanding of the Constitution realized their limitations and moved on to other topics. There is no shame in getting beat by more informed people. I am secure enough to learn from people who know more on a topic than I. But, it take true self esteem.

  15. Karen: I’ll just say this then stand back and duck: I believe the better alternative to the ACA is Medicare, cradle to grave.

  16. Thanks for the links, Schulte. I didn’t know much about Zinn but I’m catching up in a hurry, so it’s good to have a variety of viewpoints to help in the evaluation process

  18. Schulte: I’ll have to take your word for it. But when you say that he changed the context of the debate, it’s different than saying he’s ignorant.

    1. slyvestere….you wrote “The left accepts elections. The right can’t bear to lose an election. Somebody stoled it”.
      Leaving aside this contradiction, can you tell us how Jeb Bush “fixed” the 2000 election. Was it his control over the Florida Supreme Court, whose 7 justices were all appointed by Democrats?
      Or did he “fix” the U.S. Supreme Court decision?

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