After Fall River arrests, anti-panhandling law ruled unconstitutional by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Updated Dec 15, 2020;
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a decision Tuesday deeming a state statute banning panhandling unconstitutional, ruling that homeless people can ask for donations on public roads just like anyone else.
In a 23-page decision authored by Justice Barbara Lenk, the SJC states the statute infringed upon the individuals’ First Amendment rights. Lenk called the law both overly broad and “underinclusive”, targeting protected speech while failing to target activities that could affect traffic safety.
“There can be little doubt that signaling to, stopping, or accosting motor vehicles for the purpose of soliciting donations on one’s own behalf poses no greater threat to traffic safety than engaging in the same conduct for other non-prohibited or exempted purposes, such as gathering signatures for a petition, flagging down a taxicab, s
State House Roundup: Glimmer at end of COVID tunnel
Matt Murphy
BOSTON - The historic Hoosac Tunnel, running through the mountains between North Adams and Florida, is four-and-three-quarters miles long. The Big Dig s Tip O Neill Tunnel goes for a mile and a half under downtown Boston.
And the tunnel we unknowingly descended into sometime last winter when the novel coronavirus first arrived in Massachusetts? That one s measured not in miles but in months, and we still have a ways to go before coming out the other side, or even before knowing exactly how much of the trek remains.
But somewhere, off in the distance, is a faint glimmer, in the form of vaccines that will be complicated to distribute, require a bolstering of public trust and still have to work their way through the rest of the federal approval process.