Practice Case Study for Time, Place & Manner

Hello. Below is a case study from Chapters 2-3. While you will not have these long form case studies on the exams, they are another way of studying the material and lead to better critical thinking. We will go over the answers later.

The Cleveland Political Awareness League, a non-profit, nonpartisan community group, scheduled a series of eight talks by regional and national political figures in early 2004. Two talks were held each month at the Paramount Theater, a large auditorium, over a four-month period. The speakers represented a variety of viewpoints and political policies. On the evening of the second speech Art Ferrill, a radical socialist and long time local political agitator, set up a card table on the public sidewalk outside the theater and tried to sell a book he had written, Government and the End of Civilization.

Police outside the theater asked Ferrill to move his table because, they said, it was an impediment to the pedestrians using the sidewalk. He refused and was arrested for violating a city ordinance on street vending. He failed to have a vending permit, police said.

The city’s ordinance requires that any person who seeks to sell any merchandise on a city sidewalk must obtain a permit, which can be issued if the city manager finds that the goods for sale are legitimate, that the seller will not endanger public safety or convenience, and that, in the judgment of the city manager, the sale of the goods is in the “best interest” of the people of Cleveland. The sale of newspapers from street corners to pedestrians and motorists is exempt from the provisions of the ordinance.

Ferrill challenged the time, place and manner ordinance on First Amendment grounds. He argues that the permit process is unconstitutional.

A. What kind of a forum is a city sidewalk?

B. In testing whether a time, place and manner rule is constitutional, what criteria do the courts apply?

C. Does this law meet this test? Why or why not?