Supreme Court of the United States and Secret Service...

Woods v Moss
Amanda Ladd
POL 201
5/19/14

Woods v Moss The court case Woods v Moss indicates a situation in which the Secret Service made a decision that allegedly infringed upon demonstrators First Amendment rights. The appellate court denied qualified immunity to Secret Service agents in this case. The two questions that arise are; One, whether the court erred in its judgment and two, whether the plaintiffs have accurately claimed viewpoint discrimination. The Secret Service is entitled to qualified immunity because their decision was made to protect the President not to deny anyone their right to assemble.

Viewpoint #1: Plaintiff Michael Moss and other demonstrators made the claim that they were discriminated against by the Secret Service based on their viewpoint, which makes this a First Amendment issue. Their claim is when the Secret Service gave the directive to move the anti-Bush demonstrators away from where the President was eating, it was viewpoint discrimination. This claim is made because while the anti-Bush demonstrators were moved the pro-Bush demonstrators were not. The question is “Whether respondents have adequately pleaded viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment when no factual allegations support their claim of discriminatory motive and there was an obvious security-based rationale for moving the nearby anti-Bush group and not the farther-away pro-Bush group.” (wwwamericanbar.org) As far as Woods and Savage are concerned the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

Viewpoint #2: Defendant The Secret Service makes the claim that their decision to move the anti-Bush protestors was based on their proximity to the President himself. Their claim is that the appellate court erred in denying them qualified immunity. According to Cornell University, “qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” (www.law.cornell.edu) Tim Woods and Rob Savage made a decision to move the anti-Bush protestors farther away from the patio that President Bush was having dinner on. They argue that,
“Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, if the law at the time of the event sat issue “did not clearly establish that the officer’s conduct would violate the Constitution, the officer should not be subject to liability or, indeed, even the burdens of litigation. Bros-seau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004) (per curiam).The Court has “emphasize[d] that” the qualified-immunity determination “‘must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition. ’Ibid.(quoting Saucierv. Katz, 533U.S. 194, 201 (2001)). The court of appeals ignored that principle when it denied qualified immunity to petitioners based on the broad general proposition that viewpoint discrimination is unlawful.” (www.americanbar.org)

Decision
The precedent set in the court case Chicago Police Department v Mosley (1972) which stated, “[Not] all picketing must be allowed. We have continually recognized that reasonable ‘time, place, and manner ‘regulations of picketing may be necessary to further significant government interests.” (Choper, 2001) This clearly outlines that certain authorities, such as the Secret Service, are able to disallow

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