Court fight over meeting tickets may hinge on First Amendment

Disorderly conduct tickets issued by the Port Washington Police Department to three women after a melee at the Dec. 2 Port Washington Common Council meeting should be dismissed because they were expressing their First Amendment right to free speech, their attorney argued in a motion filed with the Mid-Moraine Municipal Court last week.

“The conduct underlying each citation — making a single political statement and expressing in a physical manner solidarity with a person being illegally and forcibly removed by police — is constitutionally protected expression under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Attorney Dan Adams wrote in the motion he filed on June 3.

“There is no more protected category of speech than political expression criticizing elected officials.”

Adams represents Christine Le Jeune, a founder of the anti-data center organization Great Lakes Neighbors United, as well as Julianne Wanderer and Paula Butler, who were handcuffed, removed from the Common Council meeting and ticketed for disorderly conduct.

Adams argued that the women’s actions at the meeting weren’t disorderly.

“Simply put, the police, not the defendants, ‘caused the disturbance,’” he wrote.

“Any alleged disturbance was created entirely by police action, not by the defendants’ independent speech or actions. The government cannot prosecute protected political speech (in its proper forum — a public meeting) because the police’s reaction to mere speech was to cause a physical fracas and disturbance.”

During the Dec. 2 meeting, Le Jeune spoke in opposition to the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse Campus, then stated “recall” — which Adams described as “a single word expressing a political idea”—   in reference to the process for removing elected officials from office several times as she returned to her seat.

“Her statements of ‘recall’ — a political demand for democratic accountability directed at elected officials — is core First Amendment expression of the highest order,” Adams wrote. “The fact that it caused other audience members to react does not remove its protection. The First Amendment shields speech that provokes, challenges and creates unrest.”

After Le Jeune returned to her seat, Police Chief Kevin Hingiss asked her to leave the council chambers. She refused, and he and another officer physically removed her from her seat, angering the crowd of about 50 people.

Adams also argued that the actions of police were colored by the fact Le Jeune was arguing a position on the data center that wasn’t held by aldermen or the police chief.

When police began physically removing Le Jeune, he wrote, “what followed was predictable.

Wanderer and Butler “reacted with vocal outrage and acts displaying physical disobedience and solidarity.”

Adams argued that Wanderer’s reaction in yelling “shame” at aldermen and using profanity to condemn government action is also protected speech.

It is “a political value judgment and a form of civic protest,” he wrote.

And Butler, who laid across Le Jeune to prevent police from removing her from the room, is also protected, Adams wrote.

Her “reactive expressive conduct — particularly in the context of witnessing a police arrest in a public space — is constitutionally protected and cannot be the basis for a disorderly conduct citation without violating the First Amendment.

“Citing her for the disorder that police action created is precisely the retaliatory enforcement the First Amendment prohibits,” Adams wrote.

He also argued that the Wisconsin Supreme Court “has squarely held” that disorderly conduct “may only be used to punish speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment.”

Adams said there is no court date set in the case, adding he expects the city will issue a response to his motion in the coming weeks.

The city is being represented by special prosecuting attorney Tim Algiers.