It’s been almost a decade since Robert Norse sued the Santa Cruz City Council for violating his First Amendment rights (if you don’t remember what for, at a 2002 city council meeting, he gave a “mock Nazi salute” to the council and was expelled for causing a disruption and arrested), and yet the matter has yet to be resolved. Last December, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled that the case should be revisited by a judge, but the case never went to trial. Now, unless the city’s lawyers can reach a settlement with the local homeless advocate and professional pot-stirrer by next month, the city council plans to take their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Norse wrote in an email to local media that the city’s decision to go for a Supreme Court appeal is “More money being spent to defend more arbitrary power.” Just as it has been for nine years now, this is a case that just keeps coming.
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