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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Courts - Specialty plates questions being heard in 3rd Circuit
Here is a long list of ILB entries on "God" plates and "Choose Life" plates. Plus there was the ILB entry from April 9th, pointing to a How Appealing entry, referencing a Denver Westword headline: "After vegan requests LVTOFU license plate, the DMV reveals its dirty mind."
Today Shannon P. Duffy of The Legal Intelligencer has an article headed "3rd Circuit to Mull When States Can Limit License Slogan Choice." It begins:
Combine the hot-button issue of abortion with a truly perplexing First Amendment question -- whether auto license plates are a public forum -- and it's no wonder the federal courts are all over the map on whether states have the right to deny issuing specialty plates that carry the slogan "Choose Life."Today a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is slated to take up the issue in Children First Foundation Inc. v. Legreide, a suit alleging that New Jersey officials engaged in "viewpoint discrimination" when they said that a specialty plate bearing the slogan "Choose Life" would be "too controversial."
The judges -- Theodore A. McKee and D. Brooks Smith of the 3rd Circuit and a visiting judge, Richard Stearns of the District of Massachusetts -- will not be writing on a clean slate.
Similar court battles have erupted all over the country.
Most notably, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the state of Arizona to begin issuing "Choose Life" plates, but the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., held that the state of South Carolina had no right to specifically authorize such anti-abortion plates without also allowing plates that bear an abortion-rights message.
In October, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to step into the fray, allowing the 9th Circuit decision to go into effect.
So far, at least 18 states have begun issuing "Choose Life" plates and efforts are under way in an equal number of states -- some in court and others before state agencies -- to expand the movement.
In the 3rd Circuit case, Children First's lawyer, Jeffrey A. Shafer of the Alliance Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., will be arguing that U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano erred by failing to recognize that New Jersey law allows nonprofit groups to put logos on specialty plates and that Children First was singled out because of the content of its logo.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2009 09:44 AM
Posted to Courts in general