Court Opinion

ID: 9817209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 04:07:12.991516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:46.391542
License: Public Domain

OBERDORFER, J.,
concurring.
Defendant Rendell testified in his deposition that he asked Morris, the local Teamsters leader, if he could “bring some people to the—to the demonstration?” in support of President Clinton. “We want,” he said “in number and ... in loudness ... to drown out the demonstrators” against the President. (Rendell Dep. 114:7-10, Jan. 2, 2002.)
A dictionary definition of “drown out” is: “to cause (a sound) not to be heard by making a loud noise <his speech was [drownjed out by ... boos—New Yorker.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1977); see also Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.1999).
As an original matter I would have directed the trial court to put to a jury the question of whether the defendant was asking Morris to interfere with Clinton opponents’ First Amendment right to express publicly their opposition to the President.
However, plaintiffs’ briefs failed to make this point, and, at oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel specifically declined to make such a claim. See Maj. Op. at n.9.
Accordingly, I must concur in the court’s decision.