Asheville Can Defend Noise Law Against Anti-Abortion Activist

An anti-abortion protester wasn’t entitled to judgment before trial on whether Asheville, N.C.'s ordinance banning amplified speech outside of medical centers violated his free-speech rights.

Zachary Hebb shouldn’t have won summary judgment on his challenge to a city law that allegedly prevented him from engaging in his preferred form of protest outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, a split US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said Wednesday. The city’s evidence raised genuine issues of material fact as to whether the ordinance was content-neutral, narrowly tailored, and provided ample alternative channels of communication, the majority said.

Several US cities and ...