Court orders free speech out of bounds

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ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE October 14, 2005 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020

Court orders free speech out of bounds on its own steps

ADF attorneys file suit against California judge who declared all public areas of Los Angeles County courthouses “no speech zones”

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal civil rights lawsuit today against a California Superior Court judge who declared all public areas of Los Angeles County courthouses “no speech zones.”

“The courts are supposed to be protecting our First Amendment rights, not suppressing them,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. “This judge’s order is a constitutional travesty and has already forced our clients and other law-abiding citizens from engaging in classic, ordinary free speech.”

ADF attorneys represent best-selling author and TV co-host Ray Comfort and Pastor Emeal Zwayne, two Christian ministers who have been peacefully sharing their faith most mornings for the last 2-1/2 years outside of the Los Angeles County courthouse in Bellflower. For 20 minutes each morning, Comfort and Zwayne talk with persons waiting outside before the courthouse opens for the day. They have never caused any disturbance for the court or for uninterested persons.

Because of the court’s “no speech zone” order, police officers removed the two men from a walkway outside of the courthouse on Sept. 30 and told them not to return.

According to the complaint filed today, the general order issued Sept. 13 by Judge William MacLaughlin “prohibits such free speech activities as picketing, distribution of literature, and demonstration. The ban requires even an individual prospective speaker to get a permit but fails to provide any objective criteria or time restrictions governing the granting of a permit.”

“Our clients have been peaceably speaking on the courthouse steps for years. Now a judge has proclaimed a sudden and sweeping crackdown on free speech. A courthouse is the last place you’d expect to find a restriction on an American’s First Amendment rights,” said Johnson. “We expect that the federal court will see the obvious problems with Judge MacLaughlin’s order and declare it unconstitutional.”

The full text of the complaint filed today in the case Comfort v. MacLaughlin in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ComfortComplaint.pdf

ADF is a national legal alliance defending our first liberty--religious freedom--through strategy, training, funding and litigation. http://www.telladf.org/