What to Do When Someone Objects to a Public Speaker? Maybe Best to Stay Out of the First Amendment Fray

The Heckler’s Veto and the First Amendment 
By Robert Phillips  
Deputy District Attorney (ret.)  

Some years back I authored a memo entitled “Constitutionally Protected Expressive Activity & the First Amendment: Who Ya Gonna Call ” Over the years, I’ve expanded this memo to cover a whole pile of First Amendment, freedom of expression issues. This is available to paid Professional subscribers online in the LegalUpdates.com library. 

However, the primary objective of this memo has remained the same: To warn police officers that when dealing with canvassers or others who plant themselves in front of a privately owned store such as a supermarket, home supply warehouse or other similar establishment for the purpose of collecting signatures, distributing pamphlets, soliciting funds for a charity, panhandling, or any other politically, socially, or religiously motivated purpose, it is best to just leave that person alone and let the business shoulder the burden of going to court and asking for a court order prohibiting or limiting that person’s activities.  

That’s because the person who may be upsetting the store owner typically has a First Amendment right to do what he is doing.  

To prevent or attempt to control that activity requires a court, at an evidentiary hearing, to first balance the “time, place and manner” of such an activity with the store owner’s desire to prevent it from occurring on their property, while taking into consideration the canvasser’s First Amendment freedom of expression rights. The cop in the field is simply not equipped to make such a determination. 

Well, it seems that the city of Seattle never got the memo, so to speak, or at least didn’t realize that the same issue is involved when the activity is occurring in a public park. In a slight variation from the above situations, the recently published Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case of Meinecke v. City of Seattle (9th Cir. April 18, 2024) F.4th [2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 9390] expands the rule a little for us.  

In Meinecke, it seems that the appellant, Matthew Meinecke, decided in June of 2022 that he was going to attend an abortion rally, and then a couple days later, an LGBTQ pride event. Both events were held in ....

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