PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A federal judge Monday tossed a restriction he placed on federal officers’ actions in response to protests near the federal courthouse in Portland.
“I find that the foundation for the injunction has simply fallen apart,” U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman said, ruling from the bench. “It has been erased by a change on the ground - a change that, without trying to get into the heads of the plaintiffs, by all appearances is their victory.”
On Election Day, lawyers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged the judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put an emergency hold on Mosman’s Nov. 2 order, arguing it would put federal officers in danger and wasn’t justified. The Homeland Security department also filed a formal appeal. A three-judge panel of the appellate court declined.
During a status hearing Monday, Mosman said there was no further need for the order, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The order had restricted federal officers from engaging in crowd control activities beyond a one-block radius around the downtown courthouse.
The judge pointed out the lack of recent protests immediately outside or near the federal courthouse that have resulted in any response from federal officers.
Two state lawmakers, Portland lawyer and legal observer Sara D. Eddie, the First Unitarian Church of Portland and the Portland-based Western States Center, an organization that monitors right-wing extremism, filed the lawsuit. They alleged the aggressive dispersal of protesters by federal agents outside the federal courthouse this summer encroached on state powers and breached the First Amendment by interfering with the right to protest.
Attorney Andrew Jacobs, for the plaintiffs, argued Monday that the judge’s order should remain ” in the event” of future protests at the federal courthouse, to prevent federal officers from engaging in “prophylactic multi-block patrols away from the courthouse.”
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