Disentangling the Law of Public Protest

The purpose of this Article is to alleviate the confusion that so frequently surrounds the law of public protest. Much of that confusion can be avoided, when analyzing a given case, by zeroing in on who is regulating the speech in question. There are four regulatory players, who act in four distinct settings: restrictions enacted by legislative bodies, the issuance of permits and fees by government administrators, speech-restrictive injunctions imposed by the judiciary, and the influence of police as a regulatory presence on the street. Discrete lines of precedent attend each of these players. Legislators and judges, for example, are governed by a different legal standard when they impose time, place, or manner restrictions on public protest. Administrators are governed by a special body of precedent when they issue permits for parades or demonstrations. And street-level decisionmaking by police is governed by yet another line of cases. Failure to distinguish among these four regulatory players, and failure to recognize the distinct bodies of precedent that have grown up around each of them, are salient causes for the confusion that so often plagues the law of public protest

Disentangling the Law of Public Protest

The purpose of this Article is to alleviate the confusion that so frequently surrounds the law of public protest. Much of that confusion can be avoided, when analyzing a given case, by zeroing in on who is regulating the speech in question. There are four regulatory players, who act in four distinct settings: restrictions enacted by legislative bodies, the issuance of permits and fees by government administrators, speech-restrictive injunctions imposed by the judiciary, and the influence of police as a regulatory presence on the street. Discrete lines of precedent attend each of these players. Legislators and judges, for example, are governed by a different legal standard when they impose time, place, or manner restrictions on public protest. Administrators are governed by a special body of precedent when they issue permits for parades or demonstrations. And street-level decisionmaking by police is governed by yet another line of cases. Failure to distinguish among these four regulatory players, and failure to recognize the distinct bodies of precedent that have grown up around each of them, are salient causes for the confusion that so often plagues the law of public protest

Workmen\u27s Compensation - Evidence - Opinion of Non-Treating Psychiatrist Based on Claimant\u27s Statements Held Inadmissible - Candella v. Subsequent Injury Fund

Discusses evidentiary requirements in Workers\u27 Compensation cases and circuit court review of Workers\u27 Compensation Commission decisions

The Ambush Interview: A False Light Invasion of Privacy

The \u27\u27ambush interview is a controversial investigative reporting technique permeating both national and local television news programming. In the typical ambush interview, a reporter and his news crew intercept an unsuspecting newsworthy subject on the street and bombard him with incriminating accusations ostensibly framed as questions. The ambush interviewee inevitably appears guilty before the viewing audience. This is due to a variety of forces, including the subject\u27s severe credibility disadvantage and the accusatory nature of the reporter\u27s questions. This Note applies a false light invasion of privacy analysis to the ambush technique and examines the nexus between the technique and the goals of first amendment freedom of the press. It concludes that the ambush interview inherently creates false light invasions of privacy and is contrary to the fundamental goals of freedom of the press

An Accelerated History of Expressive Freedom

My purpose in writing this article is to examine the growth of Anglo-American speech rights over the past millennium. Since the best measure of expressive freedom is the freedom to criticize one\u27s government, I will focus on the regulation of seditious speech in an accelerated tour of history, from the printing press to the present day

The First Amendment\u27s Petition Clause as an Alternative Basis for Challenging Voter Initiatives That Burden the Enactment of Anti-Discrimination Protection for Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals

In the battle for gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights, most of the fighting has centered on two sources of constitutional protection: substantive due process and equal protection. Unfortunately, courts have been reluctant to find in either of those constitutional guarantees a broad source of protection for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The purpose of my remarks today is to suggest that the First Amendment—specifically, the Petition Clause of the First Amendment—provides an alternative basis for vindicating gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights in certain cases. At least in the context of voter initiatives that seek to abolish anti-discrimination protection for sexual orientation, the Petition Clause is a promising alternative to equal protection and substantive due process

Foreword: The Ohio Constitution on the Occasion of Its Bicentennial

This symposium issue of the Cleveland State Law Review publishes the papers that were presented at a conference marking the bicentennial of the Ohio Constitution. That conference, held here at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in April 2003, examined the history and assessed the vitality of our state constitution. The conference was conceived and its planning was supervised by our Dean, Steven H. Steinglass, who has devoted significant scholarly attention to the Ohio Constitution. In light of my own endeavors in state constitutional law, both as a lawyer and as a scholar, I gladly assisted Dean Steinglass in organizing the conference. In the paragraphs that follow, I briefly summarize each of the contributions to this symposium. Those papers cover a broad range of topics — from Ohio constitutional history and interpretation to race and equal protection, education and tort reform, separation of powers and the one-subject rule

A First Amendment Compass: Navigating the Speech Clause with a Five-Step Analytical Framework

This Article is designed to serve as a First Amendment “compass,” explaining the Speech Clause while offering a systematic method for analyzing any claim asserted under it. The need for this Article stems from the fact that First Amendment law is more than ever a labyrinth. For students, lawyers, and judges alike, it is difficult even to identify--much less to distinguish and apply-- the various strands of applicable precedent. This is because the Supreme Court has developed a dense mass of overlapping doctrines: drawing distinctions between content-based1 and content-neutral restrictions; drawing further distinctions between fully-protected and “low-level” categories of expression; creating separate bodies of precedent (overbreadth, vagueness and prior restraint) that focus on impermissible methods of regulation; requiring particular solicitude for controversial speakers (the “hostile audience” cases); and creating special rules for special settings (the public forum doctrine8 and the discrete lines of precedent governing students, soldiers, prisoners, and public employees). This Article sorts, identifies, and explains each of the foregoing lines of precedent, while furnishing a framework that may be used in analyzing any government restriction on speech. The analytical framework is comprised of five questions that are designed to serve as an issue-spotting checklist. After outlining this five-step inquiry in Part II, the Article follows the same five-step path in Part III, offering a detailed explication of the current law governing free expression

The Road Not Taken: State Constitutions as an Alternative Source of Protection for Reproductive Rights

Lawyers seeking constitutional protection for reproductive rights have relied almost exclusively on a liberty/privacy theory under the Federal Constitution. In the wake of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, this theory may be seen as providing a floor of minimum protection-preventing states from banning abortion outright. But it is not strong enough to prevent states from enacting restrictions on the availability of abortion. Thus, the battle over reproductive rights may be seen as shifting from one phase ( Can abortion be banned? ) to another ( How far can states go in restricting access to abortion\u27? ). If proponents of reproductive freedom are to have any success in this second phase of abortion litigation, they must look beyond the lone theory that has so long sustained them. They must advance new theories under the Federal Constitution and they must also look to state constitutions

Foreword: The Ohio Constitution on the Occasion of Its Bicentennial

This symposium issue of the Cleveland State Law Review publishes the papers that were presented at a conference marking the bicentennial of the Ohio Constitution. That conference, held here at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in April 2003, examined the history and assessed the vitality of our state constitution. The conference was conceived and its planning was supervised by our Dean, Steven H. Steinglass, who has devoted significant scholarly attention to the Ohio Constitution. In light of my own endeavors in state constitutional law, both as a lawyer and as a scholar, I gladly assisted Dean Steinglass in organizing the conference. In the paragraphs that follow, I briefly summarize each of the contributions to this symposium. Those papers cover a broad range of topics — from Ohio constitutional history and interpretation to race and equal protection, education and tort reform, separation of powers and the one-subject rule