Cheffer v. McGregor
| Decision Date | 20 October 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-2407,93-2407 |
| Parties | Myrna CHEFFER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Robert McGREGOR, Circuit Judge for the 18th Judicial Circuit, Norman Wolfinger, State Attorney for Seminole and Brevard Counties, Claude Miller, Sheriff for Brevard County, Keith I. Chandler, Melbourne, Chief of Police, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Mathew D. Staver and Jeffrey T. Kipi, Orlando, FL, for plaintiff-appellant.
Gerald B. Curington, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Tallahassee, FL and James L. Reinman, Melbourne, FL, for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, DUBINA, Circuit Judge, and PAINE *, Senior District Judge.
Myrna Cheffer appeals from the district court's denial of her motion for a preliminary injunction preventing the enforcement of a state court injunction that regulates antiabortion speech at an abortion clinic. Because the district court mistook the legal significance of the state court injunction, and therefore erred in its application of the law to the merits of Cheffer's motion, we vacate and remand.
Perhaps few Americans are content with the current legal status of abortion in America. Many see a woman's ability to choose abortion as a part of her fundamental constitutional right of self-determination that is ill-protected by the wavering jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. Many others see the 1.4 million abortions each year as an American Holocaust permitted by the moral vacillation of the government. This case arises out of the clash of these opposing beliefs, and governmental attempts to restrict their free expression.
The Aware Woman Center for Choice is a corporation that operates an abortion clinic in a residential neighborhood in Melbourne, Florida. Operation Rescue is a major antiabortion organization known for picketing abortion clinics such as the Aware Woman Center. The Honorable Robert McGregor is a Florida Circuit Judge. Judge McGregor's docket includes the case Aware Woman Center for Choice v. Operation Rescue, No. 91-2811-CA-16-K, which concerns the conflict that arose when Operation Rescue and others began an aggressive campaign of picketing against the abortion clinic.
On April 8, 1993, Judge McGregor issued an Amended Permanent Injunction 1 in which he enjoined certain activities of Operation Rescue and others in a court-drawn "buffer zone" surrounding the abortion clinic. The injunction, which was (to say the least) legislative in tone, was directed at
Operation Rescue, Operation Rescue America, Operation Goliath, their officers, agents, members, employees and servants, and Ed Martin, Bruce Cadle, Pat Mahoney, Randall Terry, Judy Madsen, and Shirley Hobbs, and all persons acting in concert or participation with them, or on their behalf, with notice in any manner or by any means of this order.
This group (collectively "Operation Rescue" or "the state court defendants") was enjoined
(1) At all times on all days, from entering the premises and property of the Aware Woman Center for Choice, Inc. Clinic (hereinafter Clinic) located at the northwest corner of U.S. Highway One and Dixie Way in Melbourne, Brevard County, Florida.
(2) At all times on all days, from blocking, impeding, inhibiting, or in any other manner obstructing or interfering with access to, ingress into and egress from any building or parking lot of the Clinic.
(3) At all times on all days, from congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or entering that portion of public right-of-way or private property within thirty-six (36) feet of the property line of the Clinic.... It is the intent of the court that the [defendants] may use, subject to other restrictions contained herein, the unpaved portion (the shoulder) on the south side of Dixie Way....
(4) During the hours of 7:30 a.m. through noon, on Mondays through Saturdays, during surgical procedures and recovery periods, from singing, chanting, whistling, shouting, yelling, use of bullhorns, auto horns, sound amplification equipment or other sounds or images observable to or within earshot of the patients inside the Clinic.
(5) At all times on all days, in an area within three-hundred (300) feet of the Clinic, from physically approaching any person seeking the services of the Clinic unless such person indicates a desire to communicate by approaching or by inquiring of the [defendants]. In the event of such invitation, the [defendants] may engage in communications consisting of conversation of a nonthreatening nature and by the delivery of literature within the three-hundred (300) foot area but in no event within the 36 foot buffer zone. Should any individual decline such communication, otherwise known as "sidewalk counseling", that person shall have the absolute right to leave or walk away and the [defendants] shall not accompany such person, encircle, surround, harass, threaten or physically or verbally abuse those individuals who choose not to communicate with them.
(6) At all times on all days, from approaching, congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or using bullhorns or other sound amplification equipment within three-hundred (300) feet of the residence of any of the petitioners' employees, staff, owners or agents, or blocking or attempting to block, barricade, or in any other manner, temporarily or otherwise, obstruct the entrances, exits or driveways of the residences of any of the petitioners' employees, staff, owners or agents.
A map attached to the injunction indicated a "buffer zone" to be established around the boundaries of the clinic property. The buffer zone included a public sidewalk in front of the clinic as well as a public street and adjacent right-of-way.
On its face, the injunction appears to "criminalize" various acts of peaceful protest, including the mere penetration of the buffer zone by anyone acting "in concert" with those named in the injunction. It purports to provide the following enforcement mechanism:
Law enforcement authorities, pursuant to the protective provisions of the court's order, are authorized to arrest those persons who appear to be in willful and intentional disobedience of this injunction. Upon such arrest the person so arrested shall be admitted to bail upon the posting of a $500 cash or surety bond.... In the event of arrest and no bond being posted, the person arrested shall be promptly transferred to the Seminole County jail.... Such arrested persons shall be brought before the undersigned judge not later than 8:30 am of the day following his confinement in the Seminole County jail. 2
The local police understood the injunction to require them to arrest "pro-life" individuals who violated the buffer zone. On April 11, 1993, approximately 50 apparently "pro-life" individuals were arrested for entering the buffer zone. Myrna Cheffer was not among them. Nevertheless, she filed this suit in federal district court seeking to enjoin enforcement of the state court injunction. 3
Cheffer claimed that the injunction acted as a prior restraint on her free speech rights, and that the threat of arrest chilled her ability to exercise these rights. She sought a temporary restraining order as well as both preliminary and permanent injunctions to block the state court injunction. The district court denied the motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, finding that the balance of equities did not weigh in Cheffer's favor. The court deferred ruling on the motion for a permanent injunction. Cheffer now appeals.
We review a denial of an application for a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, adopting the district court's findings of fact unless clearly erroneous, but reviewing jurisdictional issues de novo. Lucero v. Operation Rescue of Birmingham, 954 F.2d 624, 627 (11th Cir.1992). We consider the questions of standing and abstention in part II, then turn, in part III, to the merits of the case.
An injunction is an extraordinary remedy that operates only on the parties before the court. Legislation operates more broadly, extending to all actors within the legislature's territorial jurisdiction. Nevertheless, when Judge McGregor issued the Amended Permanent Injunction in the state case, he, in effect, created a criminal statute prohibiting "pro-life" free speech activity in a certain geographical location. Had he merely enjoined the defendants in the state suit from certain actions, Cheffer would have suffered no injury--she would be free to engage in peaceful speech activity on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. But by extending the injunction to nonparties and by attaching criminal penalties to activities otherwise protected by the Constitution, Judge McGregor crafted a law that seems to apply to Cheffer, who is neither a party nor an agent of any party. 4 It is this unusual characteristic of the injunction that seems to have misled the district court. We refuse to prefer form over substance; the injunction has all the attributes of a criminal statute and we will treat it accordingly.
Although she was neither a party to the state suit nor one of those arrested for violating the buffer zone, Cheffer does not lack standing to bring this case. A plaintiff in federal court must satisfy the requirement of Article III of the Constitution by showing that she has suffered an injury-in-fact that would be corrected by favorable decision in the lawsuit. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471-72, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).
[A]t an irreducible minimum, Art. III requires the party who invokes the court's authority to "show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant," and that the...
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