Opinion ID: 1382891
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Fifteen-Foot Buffer Zone

Text: Although Brown concedes that the one-hundred-foot bubble zone is, taken on its own, constitutionally valid, she contends the fifteen-foot buffer zone cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. In Madsen and Schenck, the Supreme Court upheld buffer zones (established by injunctions) requiring protesters to remain at least thirty-six feet and fifteen feet, respectively, from clinic entrances. [11] Brown asserts, however, that the Ordinance's buffer zone is content-based, unlike the content-neutral zones in Madsen and Schenck. Cf. Madsen, 512 U.S. at 762-64, 114 S.Ct. 2516. The Ordinance provides that [n]o person or persons shall knowingly congregate, patrol, picket or demonstrate within fifteen feet of an entrance to a hospital or health care facility. Pittsburgh, Pa., Code tit. 6, § 623.04. But it explicitly exempts certain persons from the buffer zone's restrictions: This section shall not apply to police and public safety officers, fire and rescue personnel, or other emergency workers in the course of their official business, or to authorized security personnel employees or agents of the hospital, medical office, or clinic engaged in assisting patients and other persons to enter or exit the hospital, medical office, or clinic. Id. It is this exemption, Brown contends, that makes the Ordinance content-based on its face. [12] The City does not deny that the buffer zone's restrictions would be content-based if the Ordinance allowed the exempted categories of persons (including, most notably, volunteers assisting women in entering the building) to picket or demonstrate within the fifteen-foot zone while denying all others the same ability. But the City insists that the exemption should not be interpreted in such a manner, arguing that [t]he Ordinance's exemption for authorized clinic volunteers in the 15' fixed buffer zone is limited to circumstances where the volunteers are actually `engaged in assisting patients and other persons to enter or exit the hospital, medical office, or clinic.' According to the City, the exemption allows the volunteers to enter the buffer zone only for this non-content-related purpose; notwithstanding the exemption, no person in the buffer zone may engage in demonstrations or oral protest, education, or counseling with other individuals, including patients or other protesters. Id. at 20. When considering a facial challenge to a state law, a federal court must, of course, consider any limiting construction that a state court or enforcement agency has proffered. Vill. of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494 n. 5, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982); see Ward, 491 U.S. at 795-96, 109 S.Ct. 2746. Here, the parties have identified no such limiting construction other than the one offered by the City in this litigation, and we have found none. Cf. McGuire v. Reilly (McGuire II), 386 F.3d 45, 52 (1st Cir.2004) (noting that the Massachusetts Attorney General had set forth a limiting interpretation of the statute at issue in a letter sent to police departments). In the absence of a limiting construction from a state authority, we must presume any narrowing construction or practice to which the law is fairly susceptible. City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ'g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 770 n. 11, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 299-300, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001) ([I]f an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, and where an alternative interpretation of the statute is `fairly possible,' we are obligated to construe the statute to avoid such problems. (quoting Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932))); Davet v. City of Cleveland, 456 F.3d 549, 554 (6th Cir.2006) ([F]ederal courts construe state statutes to avoid constitutional difficulty when fairly possible.... (internal quotation marks omitted)). [13] We find § 623.04 amenable to the content-neutral construction urged by the City, that is, an interpretation prohibiting even the exempted classes of persons from picket[ing] or demonstrat[ing] within the buffer zone. Each of the exempted classes of personspolice and public safety officers, fire and rescue personnel, ... other emergency workers[,] ... authorized security personnel employees [and] agents of the hospital, medical office or clinic engaged in assisting patients and other persons to enter or exitperforms important safety functions. The clear purpose of the exemption is to ensure that the Ordinance's restrictions do not impair the performance of those functions. Accordingly, public safety officers and emergency workers are exempt only in the course of their official business, and security personnel employees or agents of the health care facility are exempt only insofar as they are engaged in assisting patients and other persons to enter and exit the facility. The functions performed by these persons are likely to require their presence in the buffer zone, thus warranting an exemption from § 623.04's general prohibitions on congregating or patrolling within that space. But these functions do not require or entail the picketing or demonstrating activities generally proscribed by the buffer-zone restriction. [14] Consequently, a construction that does not include these advocacy activities in the exemption is fairly possible. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 300, 121 S.Ct. 2271. Such a reading may, in fact, be the best way to give effect to the previously quoted phrases limiting the exemption to the performance of particular functions. Having determined that § 623.04 is susceptible to a construction that avoids serious constitutional concerns, we adopt that construction and hence find the buffer-zone provision facially content neutral. [15] As a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation, the buffer zone is constitutionally valid if it is narrowly tailored to serve the government's significant interests and leaves open ample alternative channels of communication. See Hill, 530 U.S. at 725-26, 120 S.Ct. 2480. The zone may be narrowly tailored even if it is not the least restrictive or least intrusive means of serving those interests. Id. at 726 n. 32, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (quoting Ward, 491 U.S. at 798, 109 S.Ct. 2746). In Madsen and Schenck, the Supreme Court upheld buffer zones extending thirty-six and fifteen feet, respectively, from clinic entrances. As noted, because those buffer zones were established by injunctions rather than generally applicable legislation, they were subject to a more demanding standard of review: the Court asked whether the challenged provisions of the injunction burden no more speech than necessary to serve a significant government interest. Madsen, 512 U.S. at 765, 114 S.Ct. 2516; see McCullen, 571 F.3d at 178-79 (distinguishing the tailoring test applicable to generally applicable regulations from the test applicable to injunctions). The government interests at stake here are significant and largely overlap with those recognized in Madsen and Schenck. Accordingly, since the Court upheld the buffer zones in Madsen and Schenck (one of which was more than twice as large as the buffer zone here), finding them sufficiently tailored under a test more exacting than the one applicable here, the buffer zone established by the Ordinance is a fortiori constitutionally valid. This conclusion is bolstered by the First Circuit's recent decision in McCullen v. Coakley, which rejected a facial challenge to a Massachusetts statute establishing 35-foot buffer zonesmore than twice the size of the Ordinance's buffer zones herearound the entrances and driveways of reproductive health care facilities. See An Act Relative to Public Safety at Reproductive Health Care Facilities, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 266, § 120E1/2. The court found that the statute was content-neutral, narrowly tailored, and l[eft] open ample alternative channels of communication. McCullen, 571 F.3d at 184.