Legal Battle Over First Amendment Plays Out at Denver Courthouse
By Noelle Phillips The Denver Post What started in late July over a pamphlet about an obscure legal act dating to the 1600s has escalated into a turf war outside a Denver courthouse and a legal battle between city officials and activists. The case has created some strange allies in the legal community, energized holdouts from the 2011 Occupy Denver community and ensnared a chief judge worried about security as a jury deliberated in Denver’s first death penalty case since 2001. The saga continues at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when the parties of a civil rights lawsuit appear in U.S. District […]
Read moreSo Much for Free Speech
By Dave Gahary A series of separate incidences in the Sunshine and Lone Star states illustrate that the freedom to voice ones opinion, as memorialized in the U.S. Constitution as well as these state’s constitutions, may be an endangered relic of bygone days. Fortunately, the law is still on the side of the people who are brave enough to speak their minds, and it is only a matter of time before advocates of free speech and thought push back. The latest incident followed a widely publicized scuffle that unfolded in the town of McKinney, Texas, where a white police officer […]
Read moreGood Samaritan Silenced in Idaho
By C. Petherick He says he only wanted to inform neighbors about child molesters, who may be living in their neighborhood. That’s why L.D. Bryson put signs in front of his house in Osburn, Ida ho, informing parents that they may have sex offenders living among them. But local law enforcement didn’t see it that way. So when Bryson refused to take them down, he was arrested. Bryson is now demanding $1 million from authorities for violating his First Amendment rights. “They threatened my mom and dad if we didn’t take the signs down,” Bryson told Associated Press. But it […]
Read moreSeditious Talk of Peace
By Paul T. Angel A critical First Amendment fight that erupted in a school classroom has spilled over into the courtroom in Bloomington, Ind. The outcome could either allow teachers to speak freely or gag them. It began on a January day two months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The sixth-grade students at Clear Creek Elementary School were thinking about the impending war while discussing an issue of Time for Kids, a version of Time magazine written for children and a regular part of the lesson plan. One student had read an article about a peace March […]
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