Cincinnatti imposed a cerfew because they want to keep people from rioting over the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white poilice officer. I don’t want to turn this into a Great Debate, but how can that be Constitutional? Doesn’t the First Ammendment recognize our right to freely assemble?
Oly peacefully. See, the rioters in Cincinnati weren’t assembling peacefully. Trust me, I live in downtown Cincinnati. Luckily in the nice part, and not anywhere near the rioters. Idiots. Kinda nice to have a 100% peaceful evening for a change, though!
Ngol
But a curfew is imposed on everyone. If I decide to violate a curfew by exercising my Constitutionally guananteed right to take a walk, go for a drive, go to a park to look through a telescope at Rigel, or whatever other peaceful pursuit I may wish to engage in in the middle of the night, doesn’t a curfew violate my Civil Rights?
Granted, the rioters were not peaceful; but what about those peaceful citizens that do not want to be put under house arrest after a certain hour, without due process, just because they happen to live in a certain part of town?
ACK!!! :eek:
I really do know how to spell “curfew”, you know. I’d posted without caffeine. Probably too trivial for a mod to correct the spelling in the title, huh?
IMO, yes, it blatantly violates your Civil Rights. However, IIRC, the Supreme Court has ruled on the validity of curfews, and decided that you do not, in fact, have a right to be out if the Smiling Policeman says you are violating curfew.
Remember - the Constitution may say one thing, but the Supreme Court decides what it really means. Such as, if they interpret the phrase “the people” to mean a collective right for just one Amendment, and an individual right for all others…
Let’s see. There’s a screaming horde of rioters down the street, and you’d want to take a walk? I don’t think so.
I think the curfew is for your saftey also. The police can’t be everywhere. So for general safety they have to keep everyone inside.
It’s a little inconvience, but think about the possible consequences.
The Supreme Court has also recognized several times that the Executive (in this case, the Mayor) has the right to suspend civil rights in times of emergency.
You could file a lawsuit on behalf of the Peaceful Assemblers of Cincinatti to challenge whether the Mayor had the right to use such power in this particular instance.
The right to peaceably assemble has, for the most part, been subsumed into the concept of the right to free expression, an amalgamation of the express rights of free speech, free press, peaceable assembly and petitioning of the government for redress. As one text puts it, “there seems little question that no substantive issue turns upon whether one may be said to be engaged in speech or assembly or petition.” (Senate Analysis of Constitution - First Amendment Law Page 1191)
As with all aspects of the right to free expression, reasonable regulation of time, place and manner of assembly will be held constitutional. This should be contrasted to state actions which attempt to forbid a type of activity in its entirety. Thus, while the City of Cincinnati would be precluded from prohibiting people getting together in groups of three or more on public streets (Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971)), it would be reasonable to prevent people from coming out in public to meet after sundown and before sunup, if there was a reasonable government interest in so doing, and the restriction was tailored to meet that need. I won’t bother citing the case law regarding the test for time, place and manner restrictions; you can read up on it at the linked page cited above.
And please, let’s stop the Court bashing. This is not some further example of some right you had at one time being eliminated or restricted by nine people sitting on a bench. The original right of assembly was limited to assembling for the purpose of petitioning the government; it wouldn’t have had ANY bearing on your right to get together for the purpose of talking about girls or baseball or anything. Thus, the current interpretation of the right to peaceably assemble as part and parcel to your right to freely express yourself through group activity is an expansion of your rights.
I am so luck to have Big Brother looking out after my best interests.
The guy the cop shot dead was wanted for parking tickets. The cop decided that merited a death penalty when he tried to run for it.
In the last 4 months, 5 other black men have been shot dead by Cincinnati cops.
The Mayor of Cincinnati seems to enjoy the idea of police-state tactics. The police created this riot by their behavior. I wonder if the violence that turned this from a protest to a riot might have been started by… ** NAAAAH**! Couldn’t be! The policeman is our friend.
I’ll bash the idiots as much as I like. They just selected a President they like.