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NO TRESPASSING SIGNS
The mighty Watchtower corporation goes up against a small town Stratton Ohio 2002 with limited legal resources to set a Supreme court precedent.
This does not give them the right to intrude trespass on private property even the police need a warrant.
Jehovah's Witnesses predators can not come to my door in Bangor Maine.
Danny Haszard
Town changes rule for religious group
Friday Feb 9 2007 | Providence Journal Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses are free to conduct their door-to-door ministry in town without registering at Town Hall, officials said yesterday.
Town changes rule for religious group
01:00 AM EST on Friday, February 9, 2007
By John Hill
Journal Staff Writer LINCOLN — Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are free to conduct their door-to-door ministry in town without registering at Town Hall, officials said yesterday. The acknowledgement came after a lawyer for the Witnesses wrote Town Council President Jeremiah T. O’Grady complaining that on Jan. 3, police officers told a group of their ministers that they had to check in with the Police Department before going door to door. Paul D. Polidoro, associate general Counsel for Watchtower Bible Tract and Society of New York Inc., one of the corporations through which the Witnesses operate, wrote O’Grady saying that policy violated a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Police Chief Robert T. Kells said his officers were unaware of the case law and that in the future, the Jehovah’s Witnesses would be allowed to go about their business unquestioned, at least by the police . “
They will be allowed to go up the streets, ringing doorbells,” Kells said. “It will be up to the individual at the door to decide whether they wish to entertain what they are offering.” O’Grady agreed. “I am in full agreement with the points made in that letter,” he said. “Clearly, the First Amendment protects both religious practice and speech. Jehovah Witnesses are free to spread their message door to door in Lincoln without informing the police or anyone else.” The town’s soliciting ordinance requires anyone who wishes to engage “in the business as a canvasser, solicitor or salesman calling at residences without the previous consent of the occupant for the purpose of soliciting orders, sales, subscriptions or business of any kind or seeking for information or donations” must first get a license from the town. Those registering are required to provide the police their identification, signature, the name of employer, the nature of the products or services being offered, the names of the manufacturers of them, the organization they represent and their method of operation in town. But in
2002, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by Polidoro’s clients, threw out a similar Ohio village ordinance that banned some door-to-door solicitations and required registration.
The court in an 8-to-1 decision, hailed “the historical importance of door-to-door canvassing and pamphleteering as vehicles for the dissemination of ideas.” A key point was that Jehovah’s Witnesses were not selling anything, but instead offering free literature about their faith. “In Martin [a 1943 case] after cataloging the many groups that rely extensively upon this method of communication, the court summarized that ‘door-to-door distribution of circulars is essential to the poorly financed causes of little people,” the court ruled. “It is offensive,” the decision said, “not ony to the values protected by the First Amendment but to the notion of a free society — that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so.”
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