Opinion ID: 2067743
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Russell Senate Office Building (the Russell Building)

Text: On September 26 (the day before the Rayburn Building arrests), a group of some fifty demonstrators had entered the Hart Senate Office Building and demonstrated there, as described earlier. Simultaneously therewith (or shortly afterwards), as many as 350 demonstrators marched eastward along the south face of the Russell Building, approaching First Street, N.E. Lieutenant Peter Demas of the Capitol Police instructed a motor unit to establish a police line of six or seven officers near the corner, blocking the steps that led into the building and the sidewalk from the steps to the curb of Constitution Avenue. Demas's primar[y] concern was public safety, ... includ[ing] ... safety of ... people inside the building and the members [of Congress] ... until we could determine exactly what was going on. [6] At the same time, all other entrances to the building remained open, and Demas testified that if individual protesters had told him they desired to visit their Senators, he would have directed them to those entrances. Several demonstrators, including three of the appellants, crossed the police line nonetheless, and were arrested as they walked up the steps toward the southwest door of the Russell Building. As relevant here, the police-line regulations provide that when parades ... or other occasions ... may cause persons to collect on the public streets, ... the Chief of Police ... or an officer acting for him or her may establish an area or zone that he or she considers necessary for the purpose of affording a clearing for ... (c) [t]he movement of traffic ... [and] (e) [t]he protection of persons and property. 24 DCMR § 2100.1. No person shall enter the emergency area of zone unless duly authorized by the person in command of the emergency occasion.... Id. at § 2100.3. Appellants argue first that, as a matter of statutory (or regulatory) interpretation, the situation here did not call for the emergency measure of a police line, and thus that the police could not bar them from crossing the line. They also argue that the police line was not, in the circumstances, a permissible time, place, and manner restriction on expression protected by the First Amendment. The arguments, plainly interrelated, do not convince us. [W]here the First Amendment is implicated, the constitutionality of [the police-line] regulation and its application must be measured by the principles and legal standards pertaining to government regulations of speech. Bloch v. District of Columbia, 863 A.2d 845, 849 (D.C.2004). The District, as appellee, does not dispute that the place where the defendants were stopped by the police line i.e., the sidewalk in front of the Russell Buildingis a public forum. See, e.g., Lederman v. United States, 351 U.S.App. D.C. 386, 391-94, 291 F.3d 36, 41-44 (2002) (sidewalk at foot of House Senate steps and near Capitol Building is a traditional public forum). Where ... speech occurs in traditional public fora, government regulation must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant public interest and must leave open alternative means and methods of communication. Bloch, 863 A.2d at 849 (citing, inter alia, United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983)). Such reasonable regulation[] must be unrelated to the content of the [speaker's] message. Id. (internal citation omitted). Appellants do not seriously argue, and the record would not support a claim, that the police line was set up because of the reasons for or the message of their protest. Instead, they take issue with the need for police action barring their further movement eastward along the sidewalk in front of the Russell Building. The police, however, acting at the direction of Lieutenant Demas who was in charge at that building, concluded that a procession of some 100 people (part of the much larger group that had assembled in the Upper Senate Park) who appeared intent on reaching the steps of and likely entering the Russell Building posed a danger to the security of the building and the ability of Senate members and their staffs to conduct business in a structure designatedas its name makes clearas an office building. That the police had reason to believe the protesters, or a sizeable number of them, would seek to enter the building and continue their demonstration there is shown by the contemporaneous actions (at the same time or shortly before) of the protesters who had entered the nearby Hart Building and engaged there in singing, and chanting and reading... very loudly. [7] Appellants cite no authority for deeming the interior of Senate or House Office Buildings equivalent to the Rotunda of the Capitol Building itself, which we have termed a unique situs for demonstration activity. Berg v. United States, 631 A.2d 394, 398 (D.C.1993) (quoting Wheelock v. United States, 552 A.2d 503, 506 (D.C.1988)). The former are buildings where, quintessentially, congressional members carry out the duties of office and are entitled to transact ... business in an orderly manner without interference. Markowitz v. United States, 598 A.2d 398, 405 (D.C.1991). The Russell Building, therefore, is a situs where the Capitol Police may enforce, without First Amendment objection, the prohibition of D.C.Code § 10-503.16(b)(7) (2001) against parad[ing], demonstrat[ing], or picket[ing] within any of the Capitol Buildings. Nor, in the circumstances here, were the police obliged to await a foreseeable entry of the building by demonstrators before intervening. A government limitation on expressive activity does not fail because the decision-maker could have developed an alternative measure less restrictive, so long as the means chosen are reasonable in context. Abney v. United States, 616 A.2d 856, 859 (D.C. 1992); see id. at 861 (the government is not required to await actual harm before enforcing a regulation such as [the] Order at issue there). Because the protestors here had signalled an intent to carry the demonstrations inside by their conduct at the Hart Building, the police could reasonably act so as to head off a similar occurrence at the Russell Building. Moreover, the police line blocked only one entrance to the building. Some demonstrators testified that they were kept from visiting their Senator, but any one of them could have walked a short distance to another entrance to the building to do so. Lieutenant Demas in fact met with protesters and tried to work out a way for them to visit their Senators and continue what they wanted to do [in keeping] with their First Amendment rights. His actions thus were in accord with the court's observation in Abney that the defendant (whose conviction we upheld there for demonstrating under the steps of the Capitol Building despite a closure order) could have continued his protest at other parts of the Capitol grounds, including some suggested by the police. Id. at 862. [8] Preventing disrupt[ion of] the orderly conduct of the legislature's business is a substantial governmental interest. Smith-Caronia v. United States, 714 A.2d 764, 766 (D.C.1998). Because the police reasonably foresaw actions by the protestors inside the Russell Building that are incompatible with the normal activity of [that] place, Berg, supra, 631 A.2d at 398 (internal citation omitted), the decision to set up a police line outside the entrance while leaving open alternative means for protestors to convey their message was reasonablea measure not substantially broader than necessary. Abney, supra, 616 A.2d at 860 (internal citation omitted). Appellants' convictions for crossing the police line there must stand.