Court says two abortion protesters in DC can proceed with freedom of speech lawsuit

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Here's the vandalism:

I had to check the WaPo article to see where the chalk was applied. It was on a public sidewalk. The WTOP article did not have an illustration making that clear.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Suit alleging D.C. violated antiabortion advocates’ rights can proceed, court rules

The case stems from the 2020 arrest of two protesters as they chalked “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” on the sidewalk outside a D.C. Planned Parenthood clinic

By Casey Parks
August 15, 2023 at 6:15 p.m. EDT



An antiabortion message was written in chalk in front of Planned Parenthood offices in D.C. on Aug. 1, 2020. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday that a lower court was wrong to dismiss antiabortion advocates’ claims that the city violated their free speech rights when it arrested them for writing a slogan on a sidewalk in 2020. ... In August 2020, police arrested Erica Caporaletti, a 22-year-old student at Towson University, and Warner DePriest, a 29-year-old D.C. resident, who were writing “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” with chalk on the sidewalk outside a Planned Parenthood facility in Northeast Washington. It is illegal for people to write or mark on any public or private property without a permit.

With assistance from the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, the advocates sued the District that fall, arguing that the city had violated their rights to free speech and equal protection because it allowed others to paint “Defund the Police” and other messages on D.C. streets during Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Lawyers for Caporaletti and DePriest argued the city targeted them because of “the content of the message.”

A district court dismissed the lawsuit in 2021. On Tuesday, the appeals court ruled the advocates didn’t have an equal protection case but reversed the lower court’s ruling on First Amendment grounds, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from favoring some speakers over others. Access to public fora must be open to everyone and to every message on the same terms. The District may act to prevent the defacement of public property, but it cannot open up its streets and sidewalks to some viewpoints and not others,” Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump nominee, argued in the opinion. Judge Robert L. Wilkins, an Obama nominee, wrote a concurring opinion.

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By Casey Parks
Casey Parks is a reporter on The Washington Post's social issues team. Twitter https://twitter.com/caseyparks