The city of Santa Cruz violated the 1st Amendment rights of an advocate for the homeless when the mayor had him arrested for giving a Nazi salute at a City Council meeting, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The unanimous ruling by a full 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deemed Mayor Christopher Krohn's order to remove activist Robert Norse from the public meeting to be "viewpoint discrimination" rather than an effort to maintain order during discussion about where the homeless would be permitted to sleep.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a libertarian and fierce supporter of 1st Amendment protections, said Norse's ouster was spurred by a councilman's "hissy fit," not any actual disruption of the meeting.
via www.latimes.com
[The decision is available from the 9th Circuit site and via Findlaw at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1548330.html]