Now we await the decision

Brett Bursey had his day in court last week.  By all accounts (including his own), the longtime South Carolina political activist was feisty, assertive, and cantankerous when confronted by local police and Secret Service agents on October 24, 2002.  He was the only protester who stood up to the authorities when they demanded that he take himself and his “No blood for oil” sign to a (not well specified) distant location.

As I’ve reported previously, the case was heard without a jury before US Magistrate Bristow Marchant in Columbia.  As the judge drily noted from the bench, “This is an unusually complicated petty offense”.  His ruling in the case, under which Bursey could be subject to a six month prison sentence and a fine of up to $5000 if convicted, is expected in the second week of December.

In everything I’ve read about last week’s proceedings, one issue—what I believe to be the central issue—was never addressed.  That issue is:

Were Bush supporters also forced to move from the same location?

In the trial, it is noted that only those with tickets, presumably issued by the sponsors of the speech and perhaps even vetted by the Secret Service, were permitted inside the hangar at the airport where Dubya was speaking.  That’s fine ... Brett Bursey wasn’t going to be one of the recipients of those tickets, didn’t expect to get inside the building, wasn’t trying to get inside.  But there was apparently a gap of some dimension between the ticket-only restricted area described in the trial and the alleged (and seemingly very poorly defined) “free speech zone” far away from the prez’s sensitive eyes and ears.

Bursey was forcibly removed from that intervening space.  Bush and Ashcroft’s federal Justice Department tried Brett Bursey because he believed that the First Amendment gave him the right to peacefully petition his government somewhere within that space.  My question, which the news reports fail to address, is whether other persons attempting to peacefully petition their government were permitted to stay in the location from which Bursey was removed.  If so, then the reason for Bursey’s removal was the content of his petition rather than its mere presence at that location. 

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