Judges: Supreme Court can ban protests on plaza

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Supreme Court, the setting for landmark rulings in favor of free speech, can keep protesters off its marble plaza without violating their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The inviting, 20,000-square-foot open-air plaza can remain a protest-free zone because the court has an interest in preserving decorum and the idea that judges are not influenced by public opinion and pressure, said a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Besides, the appeals court said, the public sidewalk directly in front of the plaza often is used by demonstrators, though the sidewalk is roughly half as deep as the plaza.

“A line must be drawn somewhere along the route from the street to the court’s front entrance. But where?” wrote Judge Sri Srinivasan, who has been mentioned as a potential high-court nominee. “Among the options, it is fully reasonable for that line to be fixed at the point one leaves the concrete public sidewalk and enters the marble steps to the court’s plaza.”

Lawyers for Harold Hodge Jr., whose arrest in 2011 led to the court case, called the decision a blow to the First Amendment and said the justices themselves ultimately will be asked to rule on the issue. But through Chief Justice John Roberts’ approval of regulations prohibiting protests on the plaza, the justices “have already made their views on the subject quite clear,” said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which is representing Hodge.

The decision reversed a lower-court ruling that declared unconstitutional a law prohibiting protests on the plaza.