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14 St. Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 529 (1994-1995)
The New Constitutional Right to Beg--Is Begging Really Protected Speech

handle is hein.journals/stlpl14 and id is 539 raw text is: THE NEW CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BEG-IS BEGGING REALLY PROTECTED SPEECH? FAY LEOUSSIS* I. INTRODUCTION The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, proscribes the govern- ment from abridging the freedom of speech of its citizens.' The interpretation of that simple phrase spans thousands of pages. The United States Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of the clause in its myriad applications, has created various categories of speech and has assessed the constitutionality of government regu- lations of speech in the context of the category within which a par- ticular type of speech falls. The closer the speech is to the core of the First Amendment's purpose, that is, to empower citizens to speak freely on political and social issues, then the greater is the degree of judicial scrutiny that must be applied to the regulation. In Loper v. New York City Police Department,2 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was presented with the question: whether begging is protected expression within the meaning of the Free Speech Clause That court, in complete dis- agreement with its own earlier ruling in Young v. New York City Transit Authority,4 held that begging falls within the protected speech category of in-person solicitation by or for charitable organi- zations and, as such, constitutes speech entitled to the highest degree * Fay Leoussis is currently First Deputy Chief of the Tort Division in the Office of the New York City Corporation Counsel and supervises five borough offices. Prior to this position, she was an appellate attorney for the City for 14 years, and handled complex appeals involving real estate and commercial litiga- tion, torts, and municipal government, including two cases involving significant Constitutional issues which were decided by the United States Supreme Court. The author is a 1979 magna cum laude graduate of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The author wishes to thank June A. Witterschein for her invaluable assistance in editing this article. 1. U.S. CoNsT. amend. I. 2. 999 F.2d 699 (2d Cir. 1993). 3. Id. at 701. 4. 903 F.2d 146 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 984 (1990).

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