I’ve blogged quite a bit about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, a First Amendment pro-life protester case in which my cocounsel and I filed a cert petition earlier this year. The Court recently denied certiorari in that case, but two weeks later it granted certiorari in McCullen v. Coakley, another First Amendment […]
Archive | Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness
Supreme Court Denies Review in “Gruesome Images” Case (Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness)
I’m sorry to report that the Supreme Court has refused to hear our petition in this case. As usual, the Court has not given any reasons for the denial. The matter thus remains where it stood before the petition — some lower courts think that restricting gruesome images (and harsh words, such as signs calling […]
Liberals, Free Speech, and “Gruesome Images” of Aborted Fetuses
The Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness case (in which I’m representing petitioners pro bono) has been in the news a bit, including both in the New York Times and in the conservative media, and I’ve seen quite a few comments complaining about how “liberals seek to ban photos of aborted children” or […]
Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness — Briefs and New York Times Article
Today’s New York Times has an article by Adam Liptak about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, the case in which I filed a cert petition recently. In that case, as many readers may recall, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that bars my clients from (among other things) displaying “gruesome […]
Amicus Brief Supporting the “Gruesome Images” Petition, from Liberal Free Speech Scholars
The fourth amicus brief supporting our Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness cert petition is the Brief of Constitutional Law Professors, filed by Bruce Johnson and Ambika Doran of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and by Prof. Geoffrey Stone (Chicago). The brief is signed by Profs. Floyd Abrams (visiting at Yale), Amy Adler (NYU), […]
Amicus Brief Supporting the “Gruesome Images” Petition, from Religion Clauses Scholars
The third amicus brief supporting our Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness cert petition is the amicus brief of Religion Clauses scholars — Salam Al-Marayti (Muslim Public Affairs Council) and Profs. Michael Ariens (St. Mary’s), Thomas Berg (St. Thomas), Zachary Calo (Valparaiso), Bob Destro (Catholic), Carl Esbeck (Missouri), Marie Failinger (Hamline), Edward Gaffney […]
Amicus Brief Supporting the “Gruesome Images” Petition, from Historians of Art and Photography
The second amicus brief supporting our Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness cert petition is the amicus brief of Historians of Art and Photography — Profs. Dora Apel (Wayne State), Stephen Eisenman (Northwestern), Renée C. Hoogland (Wayne State), Paul Jaskot (DePaul), William J. Thomas Mitchell (Chicago), Terence Smith (Pittsburgh), John Tagg (Binghamton), and […]
Amicus Brief Supporting the “Gruesome Images” Petition, from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform
Last month, I blogged about a pro bono cert petition that I had filed in Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that bars my clients from (among other things) displaying “gruesome images” of aborted fetuses outside a church; the court acknowledged that this was a […]
The Logic of the “Gruesome Images” Injunction Would Justify Restrictions in Many Places
Some comments on my Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness posts ask whether this injunction can be upheld on the grounds that it’s limited to speech near a church. Here’s what the petition has to say about that: Content-based restrictions on supposedly “gruesome” political, religious, and moral advocacy are presumptively unconstitutional even if […]
Speech That Can Be Seen by Children — Sexually Themed and Otherwise
My blog posts about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness led readers to ask about the cases that allow the government to limit the exposure of children to sexually themed speech. Here’s what the petition for certiorari says about those cases; the discussion is necessarily brief, because the point of the petition is […]
Supreme Court Petition Challenging Injunction Against Display of “Gruesome Images” Where Children Can See Them
Monday I filed a cert petition in Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, together with co-counsel Rebecca Messall, Thomas Brejcha, Peter Breen, and Jocelyn Floyd. I’m pleased to say that I’ve taken on the project pro bono, because I think it involves a very important First Amendment issue. The decision below, by the […]
Why the “Gruesome Images” Restriction Is a Serious Burden on Pro-Life Protesters’ Speech
This Court has been dealing with restrictions on pro-life speech for about 20 years. See Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000); Cloer v. Gynecology Clinic, Inc., 528 U.S. 1099 (2000) (Scalia, J., joined by Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari); Lawson v. Murray, 525 U.S. 955 (1998) (Scalia, J., concurring in the […]
The Question in the “Gruesome Images” Cases Affects Much More Than Pro-Life Speech
Important as the abortion debate may be by itself, the implications of the decision below and of other similar cases go far beyond that debate. Gruesome images often reflect gruesome deeds. One powerful way of opening people’s eyes to what the speaker sees as cruelty is by showing them pictures of the results of that […]