Supreme Court vacates ruling that allowed Worcester to fine aggressive panhandlers

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Worcester's ordinances make panhandling on medians illegal, for now.

(Lindsay Corcoran, MassLive.com)

WORCESTER - The city's ban on aggressive panhandling is in jeopardy after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a 2013 appeals court ruling.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals had denied placing an injunction on enforcement of the anti-begging ordinance while its overall merits were being disputed.

A press release from the ACLU of Massachusetts said Monday's decision "clears the way for federal courts in Massachusetts to strike the ordinances down."

In 2013, the ACLU and the firm Goodwin Procter LLP filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of three Worcester residents to block the anti-begging laws as a violation of free speech.

One ordinance banned "aggressive panhandling" and begging after sunset and before sunrise. A second prohibited people from occupying traffic islands and median strips except when crossing the street.

The ACLU filed suit on behalf of Robert Thayer and Sharon Brownson, homeless residents who often seek donations, and School Committee member Tracy Novick, who uses traffic islands to display signs during election season.

The federal court denied an injunction prohibiting the city from enforcing the ordinance on excessive begging while the matter was being argued. However, in November of 2013, the court granted an injunction against part of the ordinance that prohibited soliciting in public after dark.

Following a Supreme Court decision that eliminated Massachusetts "buffer zones" around abortion clinics, the ACLU asked the court to look at the appeals court decision on the begging ordinance.

The court's ruling on Monday sends the case back to the appeals court for reconsideration.  The ACLU is now able to point to not only the buffer zone case, but another recent Supreme Court ruling that said rules governing signs are "subject to the strictest scrutiny when they hinge on free speech content," according to Matthew Segal, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts.

"Following Friday's landmark ruling on marriage equality, this morning the Supreme Court struck a blow for speech equality," Segal said. "By vacating the First Circuit's ruling on our challenge to Worcester's anti-begging laws, the Supreme Court has given federal courts in Massachusetts an opportunity to say what the ACLU of Massachusetts and Goodwin Procter LLP have long argued: the First Amendment is for everyone, not just for the wealthy."

The ACLU now says, based on those two earlier court decisions, Worcester's ordinance will not stand up to legal review.

"How, in light of those decisions, can Worcester enforce hundreds or thousands of buffer zones that prohibit begging but do not prohibit other kinds of speech?" Segal asked. "The answer is that Worcester absolutely cannot do that."

The ACLU also is challenging an anti-begging policy in Lowell.

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