Late last week a Minnesota grand jury indicted nine defendants in the Cities Church riot. I posted the unsealed indictment here. All defendants are charged with violation of the law prohibiting “conspiracy against rights” and with violation of section (a)(2) of the FACE Act. The indictment specifies the statutory provisions in issue.
Two of the defendants are journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. The fog machine at the Star Tribune was working overtime this past weekend to obscure the issue raised by their alleged illegal misconduct. Assuming they committed the misconduct in issue, does the First Amendment shield them from the law? The Star Tribune featured “Minnesota law professors call arrests of journalists for documenting church protest an attack on free press.”
The Star Tribune story quotes Professor Julie Jonas of the University of St. Thomas Law School opining, for example, “What the administration is basically saying is that you can’t report on this unless we approve of what you’re reporting on. They are trying to chill journalistic endeavors, and they’re successful in many ways.”
That is rank stupidity. The indictment treats Lemon and Fort as persons subject to the law like their fellow rioters — like former University of St. Thomas Law School Professor Nekima Levy Armstrong. According to the Star Tribune story, Jonas was commenting on “the arrests.” No mention of the indictment. That too is stupid.
Is Don Lemon is a law unto himself? You may have heard of the Lemon test developed by the Supreme Court in 1971 to address public displays of religion. That Lemon test is dead. The Cities Church case raises a new Lemon test. Will you make a public display of your stupidity?
When I wrote about the new Lemon test over the weekend, I recalled that, like Julie Jonas, I too taught at the University of St. Thomas Law School. I invited commnters to quote me. I didn’t anticipate that anyone would take me up on the invitation. However, Wall Street Journal Main Street columnist Bill McGurn has done so today in “Lemon and the First Amendment” (behind the Journal paywall). He writes:
Mr. Lemon’s constitutional right to report at Cities Church isn’t in question. But another part of the First Amendment is implicated here. The right of Americans to the “free exercise” of their faith is mentioned in the same amendment that protects Mr. Lemon’s speech. That is a right the protesters violated when they disrupted the service.
Scott Johnson, a St. Paul resident who writes the Power Line blog, cuts to the heart of the competing First Amendment claims with this question about Mr. Lemon and his fellow Cities Church protesters:
“Do they have a First Amendment right to interfere with the First Amendment rights of others?” asks Mr. Johnson. “I think the question answers itself.”
Whole thing here.
