As I was reading on the informative site HighwayRobbery.net(devoted to helping people fight red-light camera tickets), I came across information about a change (in 2005) in the rules governing conduct permitted near Los Angeles County Superior Court courthouses. Specifically, the new rule required anyone solicitating people to be over 100 feet from the courthouse door, rather than the 10 feet previously required. This is the page discussing this new rule, which takes the form of a General Order from the court.
In October 2005, a religious rights group, the Alliance Defense Fund, filed suit opposing the new rule. This is their press release announcing the suit.
I decided to see what had happened to the case.
From the ADF's press release, I found the Court the suit was filed in (Federal Court for the California Central District), and the name of the ADF's party (Ray Comfort). With that, I was able to find the specific case in PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records system). The case number was: 2:05-cv-07393-RSWL-JWJ. According to PACER, the suit was settled in Sept 29, 2006. The only change the ADF got was the inclusion of clarifying language in Part I(C)(2) of the General Order, specifically, the inclusion of: "Accordingly, nothing in this General Order proscribes any Prohibited Activity if both of the following conditions are met: (a) the activity occurs on a public sidewalk and not on the Curtilage; and (b) the activity occurs more than 100 feet from (i) any doorway or entrance to any courthouse or (ii) any doorway or entrance to the portion of any other building containing a courtroom." The settlement was documented in a Order of Stipulated Dismissal, which I got from PACER.
In a Order denying the ADF's Motion for Summary Judgment (dated May 9, 2006), the judge made a number of clear statements against the ADF's view. These include that the courthouse grounds "are a non-public forum", that in such a forum, "the government is not required to chose the least restrictive alternative", and that "the General Order is reasonable in light of the purposes of the forum." The judge also says that it is not "likely that the General Order authorizes or encourages arbitrary enforcement."
The ADF did not seem to have made any specific arguments of the form that while the 10 feet limit was reasonable, extending it to 100 feet was unreasonable and should be reversed, so it's not clear if that argument would fly, but they did certainly seem to have basically lost.
I am the author of the above text about the ADF case, and I grant anyone who may read this statement a license to reproduce, publicly perform, create derivative works, and do all other copyright-controlled actions with this text, subject to the condition that attribution to me (Jesse Weinstein http://purl.org/NET/JesseW/SundryStuff/) be maintained in any such works.