Aden Rusfeldt v. Officer Cristian Morar, et al.

Under the First Amendment, street preachers and counter-protesters can speak in front of a crowd but not to a crowd, or to any person therein, or else they’re arrested for fighting words if the speech is hurtful and personally directed, even if the crowd heckles them. In this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, where a street preacher sought to vindicate his First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit refused to correct an existing split with the Eighth Circuit in Phelps-Roper v. Koster, 713 F.3d 942 (8th Cir. 2013) and with the Sixth Circuit in Bible Believers v. Wayne County, 805 F.3d 228 (6th Cir.

1. (en banc). Unlike the Eighth and Sixth Circuits, the Third Circuit in this case reaffirmed a divided panel in Gilles v. Davis, 427 F.3d 197 (3d Cir. 2005) and held that Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011) neither addressed the Fighting Words Doctrine nor abrogated Gilles and, therefore, Aden Rusfeldt could be arrested even though the content of his speech was indistinguishable from that of the Westboro Baptist Church members in Snyder. The Eighth and Sixth Circuits construed Snyder for the proposition that hurtful and personally directed speech are protected and, therefore, entitled to the benefit of the Heckler’s Veto Cases. The questions presented are:

2. Under the First Amendment, does Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011) hold that fighting words are not shown by hurtful and personally directed speech within a traditional public forum and unaccompanied by any preexisting relationship between the speaker and listener, thereby