A precedent-setting “heckler’s veto” ruling in favor of Christians who were ejected by police from the Dearborn, Michigan, Arab Festival because they were upsetting Muslims finally has been resolved.
A judge awarded the lawyers for the plaintiffs nearly $200,000 in costs and fees.
The case began in 2012 in the Muslim enclave near Detroit when police officers threatened to arrest a team of Christians because Muslims were becoming violent. It was a classic case of a “heckler’s veto,” a term used to describe a situation in which a person’s constitutional rights are infringed because another person is threatening violence.
WND reported in 2015 on the final ruling in the case by the full panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court found that the Constitution doesn’t allow police to eject Christians from a public area merely because Muslims are threatening violence.
The case began in 2012 when Christian evangelists at the festival were violently attacked by a hostile Muslim mob. The Christians had signs and T-shirts with messages that included “Islam Is A Religion of Blood and Murder,” “Turn or Burn,” “Fear God,” “Jesus Is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All Others are Thieves and Robbers” and “Prepare to Meet Thy God – Amos 4:12.”
The Christians also began their walk carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top, further angering the Muslim crowd.
Lower courts ruled the officers were allowed to order the Christians to leave, under threat of arrest, because of the threat of violence from the Muslims.
However, the full appeals court said the police action violated the Constitution.
“We find that defendants violated the Bible Believers’ First Amendment rights because there can be no legitimate dispute based on this record that the [county and officers] effectuated a heckler’s veto by cutting off the Bible Believers’ protected speech in response to a hostile crowd’s reaction,” the court opinion said.
“The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted. The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment,” the court said.
The case was brought by Bible Believers, Ruben Israel, Arthur Fisher and Joshua DeLosSantos against Wayne County, Michigan; Sheriff Benny Napoleon; and deputies Dennis Richardson and Mike Jaafar.
Now, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has entered a final judgment in favor of the evangelists, as well as an order for Wayne County to pay $197,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
American Freedom Law Center Senior Counsel Robert J. Muise said the victory will benefit freedom-loving Americans.
“It affirms that the First Amendment protects speech critical of Islam and that when the government seeks to suppress such speech by enforcing a heckler’s veto that favors the violent Muslim mob over the free speech rights of Christians, the government will pay dearly for this egregious violation of the Constitution,” he said.
The key part of the court’s decision said: “In a balance between two important interests – free speech on one hand, and the state’s power to maintain the peace on the other – the scale is heavily weighted in favor of the First Amendment. … Maintenance of the peace should not be achieved at the expense of the free speech. The freedom to espouse sincerely held religious, political, or philosophical beliefs, especially in the face of hostile opposition, is too important to our democratic institution for it to be abridged simply due to the hostility of reactionary listeners who may be offended by a speaker’s message. If the mere possibility of violence were allowed to dictate whether our views, when spoken aloud, are safeguarded by the Constitution, surely the myriad views that animate our discourse would be reduced to the standardization of ideas by the dominant political or community groups. Democracy cannot survive such a deplorable result.”
Muise told WND the settlement was the result of discussions with a mediator after the appeals-court ruling was released and the case was returned to the lower court.
The original lawsuit alleged the Christians were pelted with water bottles and rocks by Muslims, and police threatened to arrest the Christians for disorderly conduct if they did not halt their speech activity and immediately leave the festival area.
A video of the 2012 confrontation shows the Muslim mob assaulting the Christians and the authorities’ refusal to protect them.
Not one Muslim was arrested for the attack, which left several members of the Christian group injured, the video said.
The video, and a related complaint, showed the crowd – reminiscent of a rock-throwing “intifada” scene from the Middle East – hurling a dizzying barrage of objects at the Christians, who were standing passively with their signs.
(Warning: The following 22-minute video contains profane statements shouted by an angry mob and may be offensive to viewers.)
[jwplayer WcuyhrFR]
