Staff Blog
Judge pushes ACLU/Independence Park case to Thursday, asks Friends of Animals to apply for another permit
Earlier this afternoon, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union stood inside the federal courthouse at 6th and Market and entreated U.S. District Court Judge John P. Fullam to uphold free speech in Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, just across the street.
The hearing was called after the ACLU submitted an emergency motion this morning, urging Judge Fullam to enforce a 1988 injunction that prohibits the Park from "preventing... individuals, or groups distributing literature, assembling, or soliciting signatures in [the Park] or on streets, sidewalks, parks or other areas open to the public, so long as such activities do not involve breaches of the peace [or] interfere with similar activity by others." The case is still ongoing; another hearing has been scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Some quick background: On Sept. 5, Pennsylvania Friends of Animals (PFA) learned the hard way that you need a permit to exercise free speech in the Park. A small group of people -- fewer than 20, according to PFA spokesman Brandon Gittelman -- were distributing pamphlets about the inhumanity of horse-drawn carriages at the intersection of Fifth and Chestnut Streets. Park rangers approached and told the protesters to move off Park property. The ACLU interceded on their behalf and procured a permit from the Park superintendent for the group's next demonstration, in October. That permit gave a restricted number of demonstrators -- two, according to Mary Catherine Roper, one of the ACLU attorneys -- access to all corners of Fifth and Chestnut, as well as the stretch of Sixth Street between Market and Chestnut.
Now, PFA is planning another protest against horse-drawn carriages in the Park this Saturday -- but neither they nor the ACLU doesn't believe they should have to apply for another permit. Roper and her colleagues think it's unconstitutional to require non-disruptive groups of fewer than 20 people to get a permit before they can demonstrate on publicly-accessible property. "You don't need a prior restraint to keep people off the sidewalk to prevent misbehavior," said Roper during the hearing. "You police to prevent misbehavior."
In response, U.S. attorney Michael Blume argued that misbehavior isn't the only lawful cause for the government to restrict free speech -- there can be context-specific reasons for prohibiting a demonstration in a certain place. Besides, he added, the PFA have already been permitted to protest in the Park once. "Were they to apply for a permit before or on the day of Saturday, Friends of Animals would in all likelihood get access to the tourists and everything else they want," he said. (This doesn't exactly fit with the Park's general attitude toward permits; as Park public affairs officer Jane Cowley told City Paper two weeks ago, it's unlikely that any future group would get the same access permit won by the PFA.)
Judge Fullam did not seem wholly convinced that the whole permit process employed by the Park is unconstitutional, saying he saw "no irreparable damage" to anyone's constitutional rights from the events that have transpired so far. He concluded today's hearing by asking PFA to apply for another permit for Saturday's protest, and promising to hear from their ACLU counsel on Thursday if that permit doesn't come through. City Paper will keep you posted.
