Posted on 12/04/2004 10:51:55 AM PST by SmithL
A homeless-rights advocate who was expelled from a Santa Cruz City Council meeting and arrested after giving a mock Nazi salute to the mayor can proceed with a free-speech suit against the city, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Robert Norse gave his brief, wordless gesture after Mayor Christopher Krohn cut off another speaker during a March 2002 meeting and announced that the public comment period was over. When Norse refused to leave, he was taken away by a police officer and jailed for 5 1/2 hours. He was released without being charged.
His suit against the city, council members and the police officer was dismissed in June 2002 by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte, who cited the city's policy of expelling anyone who disrupts a council meeting. Whyte said a Nazi salute is inherently disruptive.
But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 that the suit shouldn't be dismissed without more evidence on whether Norse's conduct actually disrupted the council by preventing it from doing its business efficiently.
In dissent, Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain said Norse's action interrupted the meeting, . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Rat civil war, eh? That's what I thought. I should think that the question wasn't whether a Nazi salute is free speech, but whether the council had a right to close the meeting at that point. I presume they did.
Maybe the ACLU will jump in and help him out. Which brings to mind something they have not done. If any of you are old enough to remember, we use to put the symbol of Islam on all our outhouse doors and they did not say a word about that.
All city council meetings are closed, especially those with an audience.
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