Pro-life vid of day: Pro-life leader arrested for free speech in ABQ
by Kelli
Today, Created Equal issued this press release:
On November 19, 2013, Created Equal Executive Director Mark Harrington was arrested outside of an Albuquerque election polling location for lawfully expressing his free speech rights. As video of the arrest reveals, Harrington abided by the state law that allows campaigning 100 feet outside of a polling location. Though he did not cross the line, he was arrested for allegedly trespassing.
“I just want the facts,” Harrington says in appeal to law enforcement in the video. He was never asked to leave by property owners prior to the arrival of the police. Instead, the 100 feet free speech boundary was marked out for campaign efforts.
In spite of his compliance, Harrington was arrested and detained for the remaining duration of Albuquerque’s late-term abortion ban vote. He was released earlier this morning.
Mark Harrington said, “This is a cut-and-dried violation of the Constitutional rights of pro-life advocates to help get the vote out in ABQ. I was simply following New Mexico state law that permits ‘campaigning’ outside the 100 foot buffer.”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/s9qazuqC8fo[/youtube]
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
What isn’t in the story is if the property owner has “no trespassing signs” posted on the property anywhere. If the owner posted those signs, then Harrington had to have written permission to be on the property (even to protest) and the cops can remove him without the owner demanding it.
http://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/2006/nmrc/jd_30-14-1-8389.html
Either there is an ignorance of New Mexico law on Harrington’s part, or not all the facts are being made known in this account.
You can’t just protest on private property without consequences, that is what public property for. Unless something else is going on he’s obviously in the wrong.
There appears to be a conflict in the law between trespassing on private property and campaigning 100 feet outside of a polling place. If the property owner does not want people campaigning on his/her property, then I suggest not permitting it to be used as polling site.
Here’s my take on this:
The manager or owner of the property did not press charges for unlawful trespass but nonetheless the police detained Mr. Harrington for “the remaining duration of the late-abortion ban vote.” Mr. Harrington was not charged at any time and yet was prevented from being released based on his activity. Mr. Harrington was unlawfully detained.
This is now not a case of being on that parking lot but timing of the detainment. I can’t find how long the police in NM can detain anyone w/o pressing charges but its usually around 48 hrs or so.
Still “remaining duration of the late-abortion ban vote” is what needs to guide legal action taken against ABQ PD. If nothing else, it will put the police there on notice to “time” their detentions a little better.
“There appears to be a conflict in the law between trespassing on private property and campaigning 100 feet outside of a polling place.”
It’s not actually conflicting, if the polling place law was for public property. Fact remains you can’t just remain on private property when you’ve been asked to leave. That’s not your property, you can’t just decide that you get to use it as you please. That’s what public property is for, we can express free speech in public.
“Still “remaining duration of the late-abortion ban vote” is what needs to guide legal action taken against ABQ PD. If nothing else, it will put the police there on notice to “time” their detentions a little better.”
That, I agree, is shifty. I would bet the police didn’t want to deal with him so they decided to keep him in jail so he couldn’t protest again.
MoJoanne, would that be the same for a church, too? Say a Catholic Church is a polling place but doesn’t want prochoicers campaigning against the ordinance outside the 100 foot boundary on its property.
the leo says ‘criminal trespass.’ that may require more than being asked to leave a place such as a private shopping center.
I looked quickly to see if there were any cases saying that opening up your private property to some public activity meant you also opened up to free speech activity. I did not find anything spot on. This Arkansas issue notes federal cases – none match up well, but it looks like a private property owner who hosts public voting / polling is not necessarily hosting a free-speech zone – partly because voting itself does not include free speech. The host is agreeing to reasonable accommodate voting-related activity, such as parking.
http://ag.arkansas.gov/opinions/docs/2011-009.html
-This may not hold if selectivity is practiced; kicking out a conservative while allowing a liberal just beyond the 100-foot zone might be seen as opening up the private property to public free speech activity, and so opening it up to free speech concepts, generally.
-The LEO was cleverly used to possibly influence the campaign. It is unlikely that any negatives will come from detaining a person who was asked to leave private property.
This is like the IRS / Tea Party tax-exempt issue: the tea party groups focused on tax-exempt activity such as education, versus lobbying, were not kept from being able to get 501c3 status – they were just delayed past the election date.
“I looked quickly to see if there were any cases saying that opening up your private property to some public activity meant you also opened up to free speech activity. I did not find anything spot on.”
Well, yeah, because businesses open themselves to the public all the time and they still get to decide what activities are allowed on their private property. I don’t get you guys sometimes. Is it that hard to go to the sidewalk when asked? It just makes us look kinda dumb when we’re like “NO I wanna stay on this private property and not go to the sidewalk fifty feet away”.
Police abuse is getting really bad in this country. Government thugs dressed in blue..
Even though someone may be in the right, common sense is needed. We had been working very hard on the ground in Albuquerque to have petitions signed to ban late-term abortion and then spreading the word about the election. Nobody else has been arrested here during this whole process that lasted several months. Mark Harrington shows up in Albuquerque and gets arrested to prove his point. Luckily, this wasn’t picked up by the press when it occurred on election day. This act could have been very detrimental to everything we have tried to accomplish in Albuquerque. In another context it very well could have been appropriate for him to stand his ground, but not at this time. Why didn’t he just go to the street like the rest of us instead of potentially causing great damage to what many had worked so hard to accomplish to that point?
I don’t understand why he was arrested. There seems to be a contradiction in the laws. Why have one law that says 100ft from the polling place campaigning is allowed, but at the same time allow property owners to pick and choose who can take advantage of that or not? And it seems the property manager was flaky if she drew a line, then called the cops because he was behind the boundary she drew. If she didn’t want him there, she should have said so at the beginning.
More importantly, why push it in this case? Why not just go to the sidewalk? Maybe I’m missing something…
Laura – there are two laws/ two lines.
one is that no one can politic within the voting zone.
the other is the issue of what locations are free-speech zones.
private property is certainly not always a free speech zone, but can be to certain degrees.
so, sidewalks near polls, as long as they are out of the polling zone, would almost always be a free speech zone.
but, arguable, almost every other place where polls are located will be private property, or otherwise have a claim to not be free-speech.
an elementary school probably has wide latitude to decide who can linger on campus grounds. Churches certainly are not free speech zones, although most are very tolerant when hosting elections.
Hey Jasper:
Justice is incidental to law and order. Does this mean anything to you???