Grannies arrested for wanting to enlist.
Grannies arrested for wanting to enlist.
By Richard Van Slyke
March 19th, 2008
Two days ago, 10 members of Grandmothers for Peace were arrested in Atlanta for trying to enlist at an Army recruiting station. I won’t go over all the details of the event as it is best related by Atlanta Progressive News (1), but this story definitely needs close attention. Despite the fact that it is quite hilarious, it is also definitely a serious matter.
The motto was: "We don’t want our grandchildren to go to war, so take us instead."
Despite being definitely not threatening nor disturbing the peace in any way, the grandmothers were arrested for “criminal trespassing”.
Let’s go over what this means.
According to APN, the officer in charge of the arrest stated that:
"The owner of the property has the right to tell them they do not want them there.”
This indeed fits the definition of Criminal Trespassing in Georgia (2).
However there is something very consistent in the law. There is a sentence that keeps coming back in every article of the law; trespassing is consistently defined as “entering the premise of another person’.
So, in the case of an Army recruiting station, who is the other person?
In other words:
Who would the owner of an Army recruiting station be?
Taxpayers?
The amount of money spent by taxpayers on Military Recruiting is huge. According to Nationalpriorities.org (3), it was over $4 Billion in 2006 and has probably increased since then. So there is no doubt about the public ownership of recruiting stations.
When it comes to entering military facilities, restrictions are always based on security. But there are no such restrictions when it comes to recruiting stations. They are open to the public. And there are good reasons to believe that the Army would like to keep it that way. It has actually eased prior limitations to recruiting persons with criminal records and psychological problems. So why would a group of grandmothers be undesirable?
Again, “Disturbing the Peace” was not invoked in the arrest.
Arresting “Grandmothers for Peace” for disturbing the peace would have been an oxymoron…
So was it about public forum?
It would be interesting to see how the Army goes around the public forum issue, because this is the main argument that they use for their access to high school recruiting. The Conscientious Objectors web site (5) has done some interesting research on the topic:
“Federal Courts have consistently ruled that if public schools create a public forum by allowing military recruiters access to students, critics of the military are entitled to equal access.”
So what about free speech and access inside the recruiting stations?
There are exceptions when a public property is not a public forum. One of them involves the leasing of the property to a private, non-governmental entity (4).
When the property is for its own use, the government makes the distinction between three levels of forum in its buildings:
- Public forum.
- Restricted access.
- Non-public.
It does have the discretionary power to decide, but it has to be within the boundaries of the constitution.
In “The First Amendment On The air”, the Student Press Law Center (5) makes the following analysis in regard to the most restricted of the three levels:
“Finally, where the government merely reserves access for a class of individuals who must ask permission to use the forum, a nonpublic forum is created. While access to a nonpublic forum can be restricted simply upon a showing that the restrictions are reasonable, the government violates the First Amendment if it denies access merely because it opposes the speaker's view.”
In the case of Grandmothers for Peace being asked to leave an Army recruiting station, would there, by chance, be a possibility that the speaker’s views had anything to do with the decision?
(1)-(IPS) Anti-War Grannies Arrested Trying to Enlist
http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0308.html
(2)-Georgia Code - Crimes and Offenses - Title 16, Section 16-7-21
http://law.onecle.com/georgia/16/16-7-21.html
(3)- Spending on Military Recruiting
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/charts/Spending-on-Military-Recruiting...
(4)-NOT ALL PUBLIC PROPERTY IS A PUBLIC FORUM
http://www.rcfp.org/places/notallpublicpropertyisapublicforum.html
(5)-The Student Press Law Center.
http://www.splc.org/legalresearch.asp?id=10
