Free Speech Center Sides with Panhandlers in Lawsuit Against City

May 15, 2012

Lawyers representing a group of panhandlers who are suing the City of Charlottesville say their case received a big boost Tuesday when the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs Tuesday in the court of appeals.

Attorney Jeffrey Fogel released the following statement in response:

"We are very pleased with this development due to the prestige of the center, its connection to our community and its free speech wall within a short distance of where the city has prohibited certain free speech."

The five men - Albert Clatterbuck, Christopher Martin, Earl McCraw, John Jordan and Michael Sloan - with the help of Fogel filed a lawsuit last summer arguing that the city's panhandling ordinance on the Downtown Mall is unconstitutional and discriminates against homeless panhandlers.

The ordinance prohibits begging near restaurants, banks and within 50 feet of two streets - 2nd Street SE and 4th Street NE - that cross the busy pedestrian mall.

The city's request to have the lawsuit dismissed was granted by Judge Norman Moon in January. He wrote, "The ordinance does not distinguish between favored and disfavored solicitation, and it does not discriminate based on a solicitor's identity."

However, the panhandlers filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit a few weeks later. It's in that court that the Thomas Jefferson Center filed its brief in support of the panhandlers.

Originally posted here:
Free Speech Center Sides with Panhandlers in Lawsuit Against City