Anti-abortion activist presses San Diego for evidence behind school speech restrictions

Filed 2h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Doughbo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

An anti-abortion activist named Don Blythe asked a federal judge in San Diego to block a city ordinance creating 100-foot buffer zones around schools, arguing the city has no evidence his leafleting near Patrick Henry High School disrupted anyone.

His attorney, Michael Millen, told the court the city's only justification after a year is a staff report with no specific incidents of harassment or obstruction, despite police, cameras, and school board members all being available to document one if it existed.

The city's attorney countered that the ordinance targets conduct that impedes students entering or leaving school, not Blythe specifically. Judge Gonzalo Curiel noted the city couldn't identify a single complaint about Blythe's conduct, but wondered aloud whether giving students 'a little bit of space' might survive on common sense alone.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A law that can't point to one complaint in a year is a law looking for a crime after the fact. If the buffer zone is such an obvious good idea, somebody at that school district ought to be able to say why in more than a shrug and a staff memo. Common sense is a fine thing, but it usually needs at least one actual incident to lean on.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Sneaky Adventure · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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