WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Tuesday unanimously upheld a Chicago ordinance that places restrictions on events in the city's parks.
The ordinance had been challenged as unconstitutional by a group advocating the legalization of marijuana.
The Supreme Court said denials under the ordinance of "large-scale event" permits was based on "content-neutral" reasons.
In the unanimous opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Chicago Park District has a 13-point list of grounds under which a permit can be denied.
The list includes such things as not fully completing a permit, failing to pay application fees and lying on a permit application.
Caren Cronk Thomas and the Windy Circuit Hemp Development Board "have applied to the Park District on several occasions for permits to hold rallies advocating the legalization of marijuana," Scalia said in his opinion. "The Park District has granted some permits and denied others."
Not satisfied with this track record, Scalia said, the group filed suit in federal court saying the park ordinance, with its 13 points, was unconstitutional on its face.
A federal judge ruled for the Park District and an appeals court affirmed. The group asked the Supreme Court for review, and argument was heard Dec. 3.
The group argued that in order for the Chicago ordinance to be constitutional under the First Amendment, it must contain the safeguards outlined in the 1965 Supreme Court decision, Freedman vs. Maryland.
But Scalia and the court rejected that reasoning. Freedman dealt with the censorship of movies.
The 1965 ruling said any movie ban prior to review by a court had to be brief; that judicial review must be quick, and that the censoring body, in that case a film board, had to bear the burden in court of proving that a film was "obscene."
Scalia, a conservative but a strict constructionist of the First Amendment, said the restrictions in the Chicago case were constitutionally content-neutral in that they determined time, place and manner of speech. Freedman dealt with content, he said.
Tuesday's decision affirms the lower courts.
(No. 00-1249, Thomas et al vs. Chicago Park District)
