LOS ANGELES - Judge Gary Feess issued a written order today requiring the City of Los Angeles and its police department to accommodate free speech during the Democratic National Convention and prohibiting them enforcing their current park use and parade permit granting schemes. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sought the preliminary injunction on behalf of Service Employees International Union, Local 660; the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the D2K Convention Planning Coalition, all of whom plan peaceful protests near the convention site.

"The court's order is a ringing defense of our Constitutional rights to speak freely and to gather peacefully," said Dan Tokaji, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "It identifies political conventions as crucial to our democracy, and it decisively rejects the LAPD's attempt to cut off speakers from their audience. This is a real victory for free speech, for our democracy, and for the people of Los Angeles."

The ACLU brought its case to challenge three limits the City has placed or plans to place on free speech: the City's proposed "security zone," which would have sealed off a 186-acre area around the convention site from any free speech activity; the City's parade permit granting scheme, which requires a 40-day advance application and has a waiver process without any limit on the City's discretion, and the City's requirement of a permit for any free speech activity in a park which might draw a crowd. Judge Feess's order prevents the City from limiting First Amendment rights in any of these ways. The City and the Los Angeles Police Department must create constitutional alternatives to their unconstitutional plans.

"The LAPD's job is to ensure that officers create an atmosphere of respect, calm, and order within the bounds of our Constitution," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "The LAPD until now has insisted on presenting us with a false choice: security or freedom of speech. Judge Feess very properly rejected that formulation."

"It's absolutely critical at this juncture," said Ripston, "to defuse the fearful, overwrought atmosphere that has been created by LAPD leaders about civilians exercising their free speech rights. If officers are fearful and feel besieged before the Convention even starts, then they're much less likely to use their best judgment and reason when responding to the challenges an event of this magnitude presents."

The ACLU is joined in this lawsuit by attorney Carol Sobel, Robert Myers, of Newman. Aronson. Vanaman., and law professor Karl Manheim of Loyola Law School.

When we filed our lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and its police department for their plans to corral peaceful demonstrators in a fenced parking lot out of sight and earshot of their intended audience, we knew we would receive plenty of criticism. We knew that the Los Angeles Police Department would attempt to portray the demonstrators as a threat to the security of our city. And we knew that our defense of free speech would be misrepresented by LAPD apologists both within the Department and elsewhere. There have been no surprises on any of these counts.

But whenever the ACLU of Southern California and its work are grossly misrepresented in the media, we feel it's necessary to take the extra step of responding directly.

On more than one occasion since we filed our lawsuit on June 30, the ACLU of Southern California has been portrayed as reluctant to participate in the problem-solving process but eager to sue when problems result. Commander David Kalish, a spokesperson for the LAPD, first floated a test balloon of this mischaracterization in the Los Angeles Times; critics of long standing were only too eager to pick it up, without bothering to check their facts. Not one of these critics called the ACLU to make a simple inquiry.

Had they done so, they would have discovered that the ACLU of Southern California in fact tried to participate in the security planning process for the Democratic National Convention. In response to a letter requesting help from the LAPD, the ACLU made a written offer last August to look at any plans that the LAPD developed in order to help the Department implement a plan that would not violate the First Amendment. We followed up with a verbal offer to Commander Thomas Lorenzen, requesting that the LAPD maintain open communication with us in order to preserve civilians' free speech rights at the Convention. Despite many written attempts to learn of the LAPD's proposals, it was not until June 13 that the Department confirmed its plans to shut down free speech in a 186-acre area around the Staples Center.

Preserving our First Amendment rights is a sacred trust for the ACLU; we will do that through every means at our disposal - offering our Constitutional expertise during the planning process for events such as the Democratic National Convention - and, if necessary, suing the City and the LAPD when their plans fail to allow for the full exercise of our Constitutional rights.

The Police Department's spokespeople and apologists are inventing complaints about process and etiquette rather than addressing the real issue: the LAPD's unconstitutional plan to divorce protesters from their intended audience and to suppress the dissent a healthy democracy requires.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California today filed a lawsuit supporting protesters' right to gather and engage in free speech such as marching, passing out leaflets, and holding vigils near the Staples Center during the Democratic National Convention. The lawsuit challenges a plan developed by the Los Angeles Police Department that blocks groups from using a huge swath of public property around the Center, preventing them from communicating to their target audience -- convention delegates and public officials in attendance. Plaintiffs in the case include the Service Employees International Union, Local 660; the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the D2K Convention Planning Coalition, all of whom plan peaceful protests near the convention site.

"The selection of a Presidential candidate is a critical focal point in our democratic process," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "a time when we should be encouraging speech, not putting it in a straight-jacket. Free speech strengthens our democracy, and it's a right our Constitution guarantees us."

"Basic constitutional rights cannot be put on ice simply because a political convention is in town," said ACLU of Southern California staff attorney Dan Tokaji, "The plan developed by the Los Angeles Police Department would place all protesters in a parking lot far away from the Staples Center, with sequentially scheduled protests arranged by permit only. The huge buffer around the Center stretches from Venice Boulevard on the South, to Olympic Boulevard on the North, and from the 110 Freeway on the West to Flower Street on the East. This, in essence, creates a no-speech zone around the convention."

"I'll leave to philosophers the question of whether trees that fall in the wilderness really make a sound," said Ripston, "but I know this: you're not engaged in free speech if you're only allowed to talk in a distant parking lot. The proposal put forward by the Los Angeles Police Department is absurd: it treats public speech as an empty ritual unconnected to an audience. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and nature of free speech."

The Republican National Convention, which will take place this year in Philadelphia, has also stirred controversy between free speech proponents and city and convention officials. In Philadelphia, officials granted an "omnibus permit" to the RNC, effectively offering first dibs over all public sites to convention planners. The ACLU of Pennsylvania successfully challenged that permitting scheme.

"It is the duty of the ACLU to ensure that the First Amendment has meaning and substance," said Ripston. "In the case of political conventions, this earns us the disapproval of both parties. In our opinion, the parties should welcome the lively public engagement of political protests - it might help more people understand the parties' principles and get connected to a political process that seems increasingly detached from people's everyday lives."

"This is a very clear legal case with clear precedents," said Tokaji. "In 1996, for instance, the Republican National Committee tried to have a free speech zone moved from an area next to the Convention site to one where demonstrators would be out of sight and earshot. That effort was successfully blocked in federal court."

Attorney Carol Sobel, co-counsel in the case, noted that the city has long been on notice that various aspects of its own permitting scheme for protests are unconstitutional, but has failed to act.

"The City of Los Angeles was put on notice over fifteen years ago that its permit-granting scheme was unconstitutional, but it's still on the books," said Sobel. "This city needs to understand that its regulations don't trump the U.S. Constitution."

Tokaji explained that the use of Pershing Square as a staging area, a possibility raised by City Councilmember Jackie Goldberg in an amendment to the Council's funding motion, doesn't address the central concern of protesters, which is to communicate to delegates and public officials at the convention site.

The ACLU of Southern California is joined by Carol Sobel, Esq.; Robert Myers, of Newman. Aronson. Vanaman., and law professor Karl Manheim of Loyola Law School in filing the lawsuit.