By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP)
-- An appeals court has upheld a ruling that prevents police in Arizona
from enforcing a little-known section of the state's 2010 immigration
enforcement law that prohibited people from blocking traffic when they
seek or offer day labor services on streets.
Monday's
ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
marked a loss for Gov. Jan Brewer, who had asked the court to rescind a
February 2012 decision by a judge who rejected Brewer's arguments that
the day labor rules were needed for traffic safety.
Groups
that challenged the law argued that the day labor rules
unconstitutionally restrict the free speech rights of people who want to
express their need for work.
The appeals
court said U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton had correctly determined
that the day labor rules don't meet a requirement that restrictions on
commercial speech be no more extensive than necessary to serve the
state's interest in promoting traffic safety.
In
Arizona, it's legal to hire or be hired for day labor, and the state's
day labor rules limit the ability of day laborers and employers to seek
or offer a lawful service, the appeals court wrote. "Arizona has also
singled out day labor solicitation for a harsh penalty while leaving
other types of solicitation speech that blocks traffic unburdened," the
appeals panel wrote.
The appeals court pointed
out that the law's introduction, which says the statute's purpose is
make attrition through enforcement the state's immigration policy, says
nothing about traffic safety.
The court also
said the state's punishment for breaking the day labor rules is far out
of line with punishments for similar traffic violations. For instance, a
person who is found by a court to have recklessly interfered with
traffic faces a 30-day sentence, while a violation of the day labor
rules is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum 6-month jail sentence.
Dan
Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of
Arizona, one of the groups that challenged the day labor rules, said
Arizona already has plenty of power to confront its traffic woes. "There
are already ordinances directed toward that problem, and there has been
no showing that those are not adequate," Pochoda said.
Brewer
spokesman Matt Benson said in a written statement that Monday's
decision is a disappointment and that the governor will be talking with
her lawyers about the state's next step in the case.
The
ruling on Monday focused on only the law's day labor rules, which were
among a handful of sections of the law that were allowed to take effect
after a July 2010 decision.
The day labor
restrictions weren't among the sections of law that the Supreme Court
considered last year when it upheld the law's most contentious section
that required police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's
immigration status if they're believed to be in the country illegally.
The nation's highest court struck down other sections of the law, such
as a requirement that immigrants obtain or carry immigration
registration papers.
It's unclear whether the
day labor rules were enforced by police while they were in effect from
July 2010 until the decision in February 2012.
Day
labor organizers say they know of no arrests under the rules, though
they added that day laborers are still arrested on trespassing and other
charges that aren't in the immigration law. In the past, some of the
biggest police agencies in Arizona have reported little - if any - use
of provisions in the law.
Brewer's lawyers had
argued that the restrictions are meant to confront safety concerns,
distractions to drivers, harassment to passers-by, trespassing and
damage to property. They said day laborers congregate on roadsides in
large groups, flagging down vehicles and often swarming those that stop.
They also said day laborers in Phoenix and its suburbs of Chandler,
Mesa and Fountain Hills leave behind water bottles, food wrappers and
other trash.
Groups that challenged the law
say the state can't justify the statewide ban on work solicitation
speech imposed by the rules. They contend that the state's arguments
about traffic safety are a sham and that the real purpose of the day
labor rules is to remove day laborers from public view.
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Copyright 2013 The Associated Press modified.
