Judy Madsen, et al. v. Women's Health Center, Inc., et al. (512 U.S. 753)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 30, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 512 U.S. 753 · 114 S. Ct. 2516
- Decided
- June 30, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1993
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Privacy
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioners challenge the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions. We hold that the establishment of a 36-foot buffer zone on a public street from which demonstrators are excluded passes muster under the First Amendment, but that several other provisions of the injunction do not. I Respondents operate abortion clinics throughout central Florida. Petitioners and other groups and individuals are engaged in activities near the site of one such clinic in Melbourne, Florida. They picketed and demonstrated where the public street gives access to the clinic. In September 1992, a Florida state court permanently enjoined petitioners from blocking or interfering with public access to the clinic, and from physically abusing persons entering or leaving the clinic. Six months later, respondents sought to broaden the injunction, complaining that access to the clinic was still impeded by petitioners’ activities and that such activities had also discouraged some potential patients from entering the clinic, and had deleterious physical effects on others. The trial court thereupon issued a broader injunction, which is challenged here. The court found that,…
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