There 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.
Liberal LOVE to play the victim card. Particularly liberal women.
Can someone actually be knocked out online. LMAO!
“Real women”? As opposed to what? A plastic woman bought in a specialized type of shop?
BS!! I saw an ACLU attorney involved in that case interviewed on TV years after. He expressed REVULSION w/ the Nazi party and all they stand for, but stated it was his duty as an ACLU attorney to defend the Nazi’s Constitutional rights. IIRC, this ACLU attorney was a Jew. I know that’s what the ACLU do, although they are becoming more PC. I am not a member. I am a member of no clubs or organizations.
Middle school teacher and prison guard.
David doesn’t think women should vote. David is uncertain about the policy of letting many Americans vote. I don’t think that makes him a particularly good judge of the Constitution or American values.
Slyvestere wrote: “David doesn’t think women should vote. David is uncertain about the policy of letting many Americans vote. I don’t think that makes him a particularly good judge of the Constitution or American values.”
At the time that the Constitution was passed, the value was that men had a more rational mind and were better suited to voting on political policy. Therefore, the American value and Constitution did not force States to allow women to vote. Some States allowed it if women owned property. Some States did not allow women to vote. Now American values have changed, and the real differences between men and women are ignored. It is pretended that they are both the same and gender does not matter. So the Constitution was changed to force all States to allow women to vote.
My primary point about voting in these forums is that voting is not an inalienable right. Voting is whatever government decides to make it. Personally, I think universal and equal voting has weakened government. It is the reason Congress is gridlocked all the time. It is the reason politicians waffle. It is the reason that our leaders can’t decide whether to rule with male logic or with feminine feelings. When you make the vote of the ignorant and uneducated equal to the vote of the knowledgeable and wise, you end up with unwise guidance. It is like trying to mix pure water with dirty water. You end up with dirty water. It would have been better to dismiss the dirty water and keep only the pure. The vote of the wise is nullified by the vote of the foolish. Such a government cannot continue for long. This is why democracies of the past have failed and end up with a dictator assuming power.
REAL women? Really? REAL women?
That’s not ignorant. That’s just dumb.
Jack w/ the KNOCKOUT!! Although it is a heavyweight male v a featherweight female, so don’t get a big head. LOL!
The ACLU did not hate defending the Nazis. They were not ‘compelled’. The ACLU as a matter of course, of mission, defends unpopular causes. That’s what they did with the Nazis who wanted to march. I’m a member and knew some of the participants.
Glad you support their mission and can only hope that means you are also a member.
Pink Glock! Those gun manufacturers know where the growth market is. More and more SMART women getting trained w/ handguns, getting concealed carry permits, and taking personal responsibility for their own safety. Real women take their personal safety into their own hands, they don’t wait for a govt. bureaucrat to respond, when they’re already a victim.
Patrick Henry was speaking on behalf of states right interests at a time when a federation of states was an alien concept? -Really, a federation of states, operating under the Articles of Confederation, during the State debates on ratifying the U.S. Constitution…a federation of states was an alien concept? –That’s like saying the blog we are posting on is something we might be able to do in the future.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.” – Thomas Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, Criminologist in 1764.
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. — Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.” —Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” —Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
Your proposition is not supported by the historical text.
David, You have taught college, I have taught high school, and we’re being lectured to by people w/ a Middle School understanding of the world and an incomprehension of the Constitution. Lord knows their formal education level? And, how sick and tired do you get of having to tell the same people over and over again you are a theist? As I’ve said many times, you are more patient than me. I just don’t suffer fools or foolishness well. I have people who I have told I will not engage who insist on still asking me questions, talking to me, etc. There’s one person who has asked me at least 150-200 questions that I have ignored over a year or so. You have to wonder the type of upbringing a person w/ that lack of self esteem must have endured.
Watch the video of Ruben outside the Mosque @3:02 PM. He yells in front of a little Mulim girl that she is of marriageable age and Mohammed would’ve had sex with her. Her father had to whisk her way from this vile cretin.
Hey. I have no objection of being called ignorant. Especially from someone who I think is a fool. Or someone whose first read in the morning is the Daily Mail. In that case, it is a badge of honor to be called ignorant.
Hope, I don’t think that Professor Turley would censor a thread by pulling videos and pictures that pertain to the discussion. This is still a free speech blog.
Nick: You provide another example of citizens asserting First Amendment rights without resorting to Second Amendment rights. Which only proves how mistaken your first comment in this thread was.
Comprehension of the finer points of the argument is difficult for some, but if one pays attention, it’s possible to keep up.
“It’s ignorant to complain about visual aids in a debate.”
Annie, I have provided you with a definition of “ignorant” from reference.com. Here’s a definition from Webster’s.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignorant
I think what you mean to say is “rude”. Then again, it might just be that you’re ignorant.
Thank you Jack, but your quotations require more context. The 1878 Arkansas opinion for instance, could be referring to the rights of the cowardly men who were subjected to a bit of frontier justice by vigilantes.
Jefferson wasn’t using the “armed” in the way you or Olly would like to imagine it; if Jefferson felt it was a duty to carry a firearm at all times, he would have brought a rifle with him wherever he went as a delegate, Secretary of State, and as President. He did not do so, even as a private citizen. Jefferson was speaking in a generalized sense referring to the rights of states to maintain militias. Same goes for Patrick Henry who was speaking on behalf of states right interests at a time when a federation of states was an alien concept. Please read Joeseph Ellis’ The Age of Federalism
Orin Hatch is a political chameleon beholden at the end of the day to moneyed interests that are feverishly trying to sell more firearms.
Pictures and Ruben videos to be pulled? Whatever for?