Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement
| Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement | |
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| Argued March 31, 1992 Decided June 19, 1992 |
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| Full case name | Forsyth County, Georgia, Petitioner v. The Nationalist Movement |
| Citations | 505 U.S. 123 (more)
Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit
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| Subsequent history | 913 F.2d 885 and 934 F.2d 1482, affirmed. |
| Holding | |
| An ordinance which charges more than a nominal fee for use of a public forum is unconstitutional. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Blackmun, joined by Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter |
| Dissent | Rehnquist, joined by White, Scalia, Thomas |
Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992) was a case in which the United States Supreme Court limited the ability of local governments to charge fees for the use of public places for private activities. By 5-4, the court ruled that an ordinance allowing the local government to set varying fees for different events violated the First Amendment due to the lack of "narrowly drawn, reasonable, and definite standards" governing the amount of the fee.
Prior Supreme Court opinions had held that public officials could charge fees as a pre-condition for activists to assemble in public places or march down public streets. The rationale was that a fee to recover the costs of police protection, clean-up, and administrative costs did not violate the right to speak and assemble under the First Amendment. The fees sometimes ranged into the millions of dollars.
On January 17, 1987 a group of ninety demonstrators conducted a "March Against Fear and Intimidation" in Cumming, Forsyth County, Georgia that was met by as many as three hundred counter-protesters including the Forsyth County Defense League (an independent affiliate of The Nationalist Movement, which advocates the expulsion of all non-whites from the United States) and the Ku Klux Klan. According to Forsyth County, Georgia at least eight counter-protesters were arrested on charges of carrying concealed weapons and trespassing. The following weekend, January 24, 1987, there was a civil rights march attended by 20,000 integrationists, including civil rights leaders, U.S. senators and other senior officials. They were met again by about counter-protesters led by The Nationalist Movement.
Sixty-six Nationalists were arrested on charges of parading without a permit. In the aftermath, all Nationalists were acquitted. In U.S. Federal District Court in Atlanta, Judge William C. O'Kelley dismissed the case, threatened to charge the Nationalists with perjury, fined them $8,000.00 for bringing a "frivolous" lawsuit and barred Richard Barrett, who also served as the Nationalists' attorney, from his court.
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