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Candidate for House of Delegates was charged with trespassing while distributing campaign literature at Shopper’s World in Albemarle County
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and The Rutherford Institute today filed a lawsuit in the Albemarle County Circuit Court seeking to establish the right of political candidates to campaign at shopping centers.
The case stems from the prosecution of Richard C. Collins, a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in this year’s Democratic Party primary. Collins was charged with trespassing on May 7 after greeting customers and distributing campaign literature outside the Whole Foods store in Shopper’s World, a large shopping center located off Rt. 29 in Albemarle County. Collins did not obstruct pedestrian or vehicular traffic, and was polite in his dealings with shoppers, but he was asked to leave by a shopping center official.
“Shopping centers, particularly in suburban areas, have for all intents and purposes replaced the traditional town centers where people shop, mingle and exchange views,” said ACLU of Virginia executive director Kent Willis. “The framers of the Virginia Constitution clearly intended to protect free speech in such places.”
“If the free speech clause of the Virginia Constitution protects my right to hand out campaign literature outside a store in Charlottesville’s downtown mall or Old Town Alexandria, then I should also be able to stand outside a store in a large shopping center and do the same. One space may be publicly owned and the other privately owned, but they are both used in exactly the same way by the public.”
State courts in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington have already interpreted their state constitutions to protect, at least to some degree, the right to free speech in malls and shopping centers.
Article I, Section 12 of the Virginia Constitution provides that the “freedoms of speech and of the press are among the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained except by despotic governments” and “that any citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right.”
The lawyers for Collins are: Stephen D. Rosenfield, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Virginia; R. Frazier Solsberry, participating attorney for The Rutherford Institute; and, Rebecca K. Glenberg, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia. The motion filed today in Albemarle Circuit Court can be found at www.acluva.org/docket/pleadings/collins_complaint.pdf
Contacts: ACLU of Virginia: Kent Willis or Rebecca Glenberg, 804/644-8080 Stephen D. Rosenfield, 434/984-0300