Facts
- Colorado enacted a statute applicable outside any health-care facility entrance.
- Within 100 feet of a facility entrance, the law made it unlawful to knowingly approach within eight feet of another person, without consent, to distribute leaflets, display signs, or engage in oral protest, education, or counseling.
- Petitioners were anti-abortion “sidewalk counselors” who sought to speak with and leaflet individuals on public sidewalks near abortion-related facilities.
- Petitioners filed a facial challenge seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing the statute violated the First Amendment.
- Colorado courts upheld the law; after a prior Supreme Court remand for reconsideration in light of a clinic-buffer-zone decision, Colorado courts again sustained the statute.
- The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed and affirmed the state court judgment.
Issues
- Whether the statute is content-based or viewpoint-based because it regulates approaches for protest, education, counseling, and leafletting near health-care facility entrances.
- Whether the statute is a valid content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction in a public forum, including whether it is narrowly tailored to significant governmental interests and leaves open ample alternative channels of communication.
- Whether the statute is facially invalid for overbreadth or vagueness.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed in a 6–3 decision.
- The Court held the statute constitutional as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation.
- The Court found the law served significant interests in protecting access to health care, public safety, and protecting persons from unwanted close-range confrontations.
- The Court concluded the statute was narrowly tailored because it restricted only knowing, nonconsensual close approaches within a limited area and did not bar communication at a modest distance or from a stationary position.
- The Court rejected facial overbreadth and vagueness challenges, concluding the statute gave adequate notice and enforceable standards.
Legal Principles
- A restriction may be treated as content neutral when it regulates location and manner of speech-related conduct without targeting the message or viewpoint and applies regardless of subject matter.
- In a public forum, a content-neutral time, place, and manner rule is valid if it serves a significant governmental interest, is narrowly tailored (not necessarily the least restrictive means), and leaves open ample alternative channels for communication.
- The State may protect access to health-care facilities and protect individuals from unwanted, close physical approaches, including through consent-based limits on approaching within a small radius near facility entrances.
- A statute is not rendered viewpoint-based solely because it was enacted in response to disputes associated with a particular viewpoint, so long as it operates without regard to viewpoint or subject matter.
- Facial overbreadth and vagueness challenges fail where the law’s terms provide fair notice and workable enforcement guidance and where any unconstitutional applications are not substantial in relation to the statute’s legitimate reach.
Conclusion
The Court upheld Colorado’s consent-based eight-foot no-approach rule within 100 feet of health-care facility entrances as a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction that reasonably protects access and patient safety while leaving sufficient opportunities for communication on public sidewalks.