The U.S. District Courthouse building in Medford, July 8, 2024.
Roman Battaglia / JPR News
A civil trial began Monday by a group of anti-abortion street preachers who claim that Grants Pass police are violating their freedom of speech.
Protesters who go by the name Abolish Abortion Oregon are suing the city for what they say amounts to years of harassment.
The group attends city events with at-times graphic signs protesting abortion and uses megaphones for public preaching.
They also frequently protest in front of the Grants Pass Planned Parenthood office. They cite multiple times where Grants Pass police threatened to arrest members of their group, cited one person for sitting on a sidewalk and threatened to report members to their employers.
During opening arguments at the U.S. District Court in Medford on Monday, their lawyer, Ray Hacke, said that the city’s police have wielded their laws like a billy club.
The city’s lawyer, Robert Franz, said that police are responding to noise complaints from nearby businesses, not restricting the content of their speech. He said if the city wanted to silence protesters, they would have arrested them already.
Hacke has represented a number of other plaintiffs in lawsuits against Josephine County and the Grants Pass School District over similar complaints. That includes two educators in the “I Resolve” controversy, who advocated to limit the rights of transgender students. Their lawsuit was dismissed last year, with the judge saying the that the school district’s need to protect students outweighed the teacher’s rights to comment on public matters. The pair are currently trying to appeal their case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The street preacher lawsuit started in 2020, but hasn’t gone to trial until now. District Court Judge Karin Immergut said she’s hoping the trial will be finished by Friday.