Opposition Brief — Hal Taylor, Secretary, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Petitioner v. Jonathan Singleton, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated
Supreme Court briefJan 12, 2026
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No. 25-368
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
HAL TAYLOR,
in his official capacity as Secretary of the Alabama
Law Enforcement Agency,
Petitioner,
v.
JONATHAN SINGLETON,
on behalf of himself and others similarly situated,
Respondent.
On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United
States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
BRIEF IN OPPOSITION
Micah West
Kelsi Brown Corkran
Ellen Degnan
Counsel of Record
Kirsten Anderson
Joseph W. Mead
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW Tinesha Zandamela
CENTER
INSTITUTE FOR
400 Washington Ave.
CONSTITUTIONAL ADVOCACY
Montgomery, AL 36104 AND PROTECTION,
GEORGETOWN LAW
William H. Knight
600 New Jersey Ave., NW
Eric S. Tars
Washington, DC 20001
NATIONAL HOMELESS(202) 661-6728
NESS LAW CENTER
kbc74@georgetown.edu
1400 16th St., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Counsel for Respondent
i
QUESTION PRESENTED
Alabama’s pedestrian solicitation statute prohibits any person “from stand[ing] on a highway” to “solicit[] employment, business, or contributions from
the occupant of any vehicle ….” Ala. Code § 32-5A216(b). Alabama’s begging statute prohibits “[l]oiter[ing], remain[ing], or wander[ing] about in a public
place for the purpose of begging.” Ala. Code § 13A-119(a)(1). Alabama law enforcement officers have cited
people under these statutes for holding signs with
messages such as “HOMELESS. Today it is me, tomorrow it could be you,” “homeless please help,” and
“husband in hospital,” and for holding a “plastic jar”
for “Birmingham Restoration Ministries.” D.Ct. ECF
No. 106, ¶¶ 9, 14, 16.
The question presented is whether the Eleventh
Circuit correctly held that these statutes trigger First
Amendment scrutiny.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
QUESTION PRESENTED ........................................ ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ..................................... iii
INTRODUCTION........................................................1
STATEMENT OF THE CASE ....................................5
REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION............8
I.
Federal Courts and State Supreme Courts
Uniformly Agree That Begging is Speech
Protected by the First Amendment. ...............8
II. Petitioner’s Position is Foreclosed by This
Court’s Precedent. .........................................10
A. This Court Has Repeatedly and
Consistently Held That the First
Amendment Protects Speech Seeking
Charitable Relief. .....................................11
B. Petitioner’s Proposed Test for Creating
New Categories of Unprotected Speech
Has No Basis in First Amendment
Doctrine. ……………………………………16
C. Petitioner Misunderstands the Import of
the State Statutes He Cites.....................21
III. The Question Presented Is Not Exceptionally
Important. .....................................................27
CONCLUSION ..........................................................29
iii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page(s)
CASES
Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore,
32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833) .................................... 19
Benefit v. City of Cambridge,
679 N.E.2d 184 (Mass. 1997) .......................... 10, 14
Blitch v. City of Slidell,
260 F. Supp. 3d 656 (E.D. La. 2017) ....................... 9
Brewer v. City of Albuquerque,
18 F.4th 1205 (10th Cir. 2021)................................ 9
Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass’n,
564 U.S. 786 (2011) ....................................18, 26, 27
Brown v. Gov’t of D.C.,
390 F. Supp. 3d 114 (D.D.C. 2019) ................... 9, 10
Burke v. Wiedefeld,
No. 19-CV-3145 (JMC), 2024 WL 3471241
(D.D.C. July 18, 2024) ............................................. 9
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940) ... 11, 12
Champion v. Kentucky,
520 S.W.3d 331 (Ky. 2017) .................................... 10
City of Austin v. Reagan Nat’l Advert. of Austin,
LLC, 596 U.S. 61 (2022) .......................20, 21, 27, 28
City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999) ....... 19
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson,
603 U.S. 520 (2024) ......................................... 25, 29
iv
City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43 (1994) ............. 17
City of Lakewood v. Willis,
375 P.3d 1056 (Wash. 2016) ................................. 10
Clatterbuck v. City of Charlottesville,
708 F.3d 549 (4th Cir. 2013) ................................... 9
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) ............ 18, 19
Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach v. City of
Redondo Beach, 657 F.3d 936 (9th Cir. 2011) ........ 9
Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023).......... 20
Cutting v. City of Portland,
802 F.3d 79 (1st Cir. 2015)...................................... 9
Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761 (1993) ............. 14, 15
Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941) ........... 24
Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Paxton,
606 U.S. 461 (2025) ............................................... 25
Gen. Bldg. Contractors Ass’n, Inc. v. Pennsylvania,
458 U.S. 375 (1982) ............................................... 26
Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) ................ 22
Gresham v. Peterson,
225 F.3d 899 (7th Cir. 2000) ............................. 9, 16
Heffron v. Int’l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness,
Inc., 452 U.S. 640 (1981) ................................. 12, 28
v
Henagan v. City of Lafayette,
No. 6:21-CV-03946, 2022 WL 4553055 (W.D. La.
Aug. 16, 2022) .......................................................... 9
Hou. Cmty. Coll. v. Wilson, 595 U.S. 468 (2022)..... 20
Hurley v. Irish-Am. Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Grp.
of Bos., 515 U.S. 557 (1995) .................................. 15
Hynes v. Mayor & Council of Borough of Oradell,
425 U.S. 610 (1976) ............................................... 12
Int’l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee,
505 U.S. 672 (1992) ......................................... 12, 28
L.A. All. For Survival v. City of Los Angeles,
993 P.2d 334 (Cal. 2000) ....................................... 10
Loper v. N.Y.C. Police Dep’t,
999 F.2d 699 (2d Cir. 1993)............................... 9, 15
Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L. by & through
Levy, 594 U.S. 180 (2021)...................................... 19
Mass. Coal. for the Homeless v. City of Fall River,
158 N.E.3d 856 (Mass. 2020) ................................ 10
McCraw v. City of Oklahoma City,
973 F.3d 1057 (10th Cir. 2020) ............................... 9
McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014) .............. 17
Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707 (2024) ........ 7
Narce v. Mervilus, No. CV 23-200 (BAH),
2023 WL 7128475 (D.D.C. Oct. 30, 2023) ............... 9
Nat’l Inst. of Fam. & Life Advocs. v. Becerra,
585 U.S. 755 (2018) ............................................... 17
Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville,
405 U.S. 156 (1972) ............................................... 22
vi
Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015)............ 9
Reynolds v. Middleton,
779 F.3d 222 (4th Cir. 2015) ................................... 9
Riley v. Nat’l Fed’n of the Blind of N.C., Inc.,
487 U.S. 781 (1988) ..........................3, 12, 13, 14, 15
Rodgers v. Bryant,
942 F.3d 451 (8th Cir. 2019) ............................. 9, 16
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957) ............. 19
Sec’y of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co.,
467 U.S. 947 (1984) ............................................... 12
Smith v. City of Fort Lauderdale,
177 F.3d 954 (11th Cir. 1999) ....................7, 8, 9, 16
Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011)..................... 18
Speet v. Schuette, 726 F.3d 867 (6th Cir. 2013) .. 9, 15
The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655 (1929) ............. 20
Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516 (1945) .............. 4, 27
Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146 (2019).............. 22, 26
United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012) ........ 17
United States v. Kokinda,
497 U.S. 720 (1990) ......................................... 12, 28
United States v. Stevens,
559 U.S. 460 (2010) .............. 3, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, 27
Vidal v. Elster, 602 U.S. 286 (2024) ........................ 21
Vill. of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Env't,
444 U.S. 620 (1980) ......................2, 4, 11, 12, 13, 27
Williams-Yulee v. Fla. Bar,
575 U.S. 433 (2015) ....................................12, 18, 28
vii
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS
U.S. Const. amend. I ................................................ 26
U.S. Const. amend. XIII, § 1 .................................... 25
STATUTES
Ala. 1940 Code Tit. 14 § 441 .................................... 23
Ala. Acts 1977, No. 607, § 5540 ............................... 22
Ala. Code § 13A-11-9(a)(1) .................................. i, 1, 6
Ala. Code § 13A-5-12 .................................................. 6
Ala. Code § 13A-5-7 .................................................... 6
Ala. Code § 32-5A-216(b)..................................... i, 1, 5
Ala. Code § 32-5A-8 .................................................... 6
Commentary, Ala. Code § 13A-11-9 .................. 22, 23
A Digest of the Laws of South-Carolina,
Containing the Public Statute Law of the State,
Down to the Year 1822 (Benjamin James ed.,
1822) ...................................................................... 24
Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama
(John G. Aikin ed., 1833) ................................ 19, 22
Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia
(Horatio Marbury & William H. Crawford eds.,
1802) ................................................................ 23, 24
OTHER AUTHORITIES
Michael Kent Curtis,
The Curious History of Attempts to Suppress
Antislavery Speech, Press, and Petition in 183537, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 785 (1995) .......................... 19
viii
Caleb Foote, Vagrancy-Type Law and Its
Administration, 104 U. Pa. L. Rev. 603 (1956) .... 23
William P. Quigley, Reluctant Charity: Poor Laws
in the Original Thirteen States, 31 U. Rich. L.
Rev. 111 (1997) ...........................................23, 24, 25
Sturdy Beggar, Oxford English Dictionary
(online ed. Sept. 2025) ........................................... 24
1
INTRODUCTION
Respondent Jonathan Singleton is a Montgomery,
Alabama, resident who is homeless and holds signs in
public soliciting help. In this class action, Singleton
challenged two Alabama statutes as violative of the
First Amendment: a pedestrian solicitation statute
prohibiting any person from “stand[ing] on a highway” to “solicit[] employment, business, or contributions from the occupant of any vehicle,” Ala. Code
§ 32-5A-216(b), and a begging statute prohibiting
“[l]oiter[ing], remain[ing], or wander[ing] about in a
public place for the purpose of begging,” Ala. Code
§ 13A-11-9(a)(1). Alabama law enforcement officers
have issued citations under these statutes to Respondent and others for holding signs with messages
such as “HOMELESS. Today it is me, tomorrow it
could be you,” “homeless please help,” and “husband
in hospital”; another class member was arrested for
holding a “plastic jar” for “Birmingham Restoration
Ministries.” D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶¶ 9, 14, 16.
Petitioner Hal Taylor, the Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, declined to defend
the statutes as satisfying any level of First Amendment scrutiny. His sole argument throughout the litigation has been (and continues to be) that the First
Amendment has no application at all to the speech
that the statutes criminalize.
The Eleventh Circuit’s rejection of Petitioner’s argument is consistent with established precedent in
every circuit and state supreme court that has considered the issue. The First, Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits
have all held that begging is protected speech under
2
the First Amendment, as have numerous state supreme courts.
Courts have universally rejected Petitioner’s
position because it is foreclosed by this Court’s long
and unbroken line of precedent recognizing that
speech seeking charitable relief is protected by the
First Amendment. Most notably, Village of
Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444
U.S. 620 (1980), holds that “charitable appeals for
funds, on the street or door to door, involve a variety
of speech interests—communication of information,
the dissemination and propagation of views and
ideas, and the advocacy of causes—that are within the
protection of the First Amendment.” Id. at 632.
That is precisely the speech that the challenged
statutes prohibit. As the Eleventh Circuit explained,
at the time of the Alabama begging statute’s
enactment, the ordinary meaning of “begging” was “to
ask for charitable relief for the poor.” Pet. App. 6a.
The pedestrian solicitation statute more broadly
prohibits “charitable solicitation for nonprofit or
religious organizations.” Id. at 7a–8a. The plain text
of the statutes thus extends to charitable solicitation
intertwined with the “advocacy of public issues,” Pet.
20–21, as did Alabama’s enforcement of the statutes.
Indeed, Respondent’s sign—“HOMELESS. Today it is
me, tomorrow it could be you,” D.Ct. ECF No. 106,
¶9—conveyed a message indistinguishable from that
of many charities serving homeless clients.
In the decades since Schaumburg, this Court has
remained steadfast on the First Amendment’s
protection of face-to-face solicitation of donations.
Petitioner responds that the Court has never
extended First Amendment protection specifically to
3
“begging,” but he makes no meaningful effort to
explain why requests for charitable relief for the poor
would be qualitatively different from the contexts in
which this Court has recognized requests for
charitable relief as protected, such as charitable relief
for the disabled. See Riley v. Nat’l Fed’n of the Blind
of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781 (1988).
Petitioner nonetheless urges the Court to take the
extraordinary step of declaring that “begging” is a
new category of unprotected speech based on
founding-era state statutes regulating vagrancy.
Petitioner’s rationale for doing so misunderstands
both the Court’s First Amendment doctrine and the
import of the historical sources he cites.
As an initial matter, this Court’s First Amendment caselaw has never focused on a single moment
in time, but instead has looked to whether “[f]rom
1791 to the present,” speech has been unprotected.
United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 468 (2010)
(emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Yet Petitioner rests his entire historical argument on
a snapshot of state and local statutes from 1791—a
time at which the First Amendment did not even apply to the States. There are many early state statutes
criminalizing speech indisputably protected by the
First Amendment today.
Moreover, even if the Court were to accept Petitioner’s premise that founding-era state statutes are
an adequate basis for carving out a new category of
speech from the First Amendment, the state statutes
that Petitioner cites would not warrant a carveout for
4
begging. These laws criminalized the conduct of voluntary idleness, not the communicative aspect of begging.
Petitioner’s policy arguments are equally
unsound. Most of the social ills that Petitioner
decries—public urination, defecation, intoxication,
“illegal urban encampments,” “the open use of illegal
drugs,” Pet. 23—involve non-expressive conduct that
has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
Petitioner’s complaints about begging, meanwhile,
rest on the false premise that no restrictions on
begging or charitable solicitation are constitutionally
permissible if the First Amendment applies to such
speech. But “[s]oliciting financial support is
undoubtedly subject to reasonable regulation,”
Schaumburg, 444 U.S. at 632, so long as the
government
demonstrates
under
appropriate
scrutiny that the regulation avoids an undue
“intru[sion] upon the rights of free speech,” id. at 631
(quoting Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 540–41
(1945)). Indeed, this Court has regularly upheld laws
restricting solicitation under varying levels of
scrutiny.
Throughout this litigation, Petitioner has offered
no defense of Alabama’s statutes under any type of
heightened scrutiny, instead urging a First
Amendment theory widely rejected across the lower
courts. That unusual and dispositive decision renders
5
his petition an eccentricity unworthy of this Court’s
review. The petition should be denied.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Respondent Jonathan Singleton is a Montgomery,
Alabama, resident who is homeless and holds signs in
public soliciting help. Pet. App. 2a. Singleton has been
cited six times for violating Alabama’s pedestrian solicitation statute, Ala. Code § 32-5A-216(b), which
prohibits any person “from stand[ing] on a highway”
to “solicit[] employment, business, or contributions
from the occupant of any vehicle ….” See Pet. App.
2a. 1 Most recently, Respondent was cited for holding
a sign that read “HOMELESS. Today it is me, tomorrow it could be you” while standing in the grass near
a highway exit. D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶ 9.
Petitioner Hal Taylor is the Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (“ALEA”), which enforces the pedestrian solicitation statute throughout
Alabama. Pet. App. 2a–3a. ALEA has cited people under the statute for holding signs that read, “homeless
please help,” “travelin broke blessed,” and “husband
in hospital.” D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶ 16; see also id. (citation issued for simply “sitting in [the] rain with [an]
umbrella and sign” (alterations in original)).
1 The statute makes an exception for solicitation “authorized by
official permit,” but the parties stipulated to being unaware of
any permitting process that would allow solicitation under the
pedestrian solicitation statute or of anyone who had ever received such a permit. D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶¶ 18–19.
6
ALEA also enforces Alabama’s begging statute,
which prohibits “[l]oiter[ing], remain[ing], or wander[ing] about in a public place for the purpose of begging.” Ala. Code § 13A-11-9(a)(1); Pet. App. 3a. ALEA
has made arrests under the begging statute for holding a sign that said “homeless anything will help”; for
holding “a plastic jar” for “Birmingham Restoration
Ministries”; and for approaching vehicles with a hat
in hand “in an effort to beg.” D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶ 14.
A person who violates either statute may be subjected to fines or imprisonment. See Ala. Code §§ 13A5-7, 13A-5-12, 32-5A-8.
In 2020, Respondent filed suit in the U.S. District
Court for the Middle District of Alabama against Petitioner in his official capacity,2 challenging the pedestrian solicitation and begging statutes under the
First Amendment. Pet. App. 3a–4a. The district court
granted Respondent’s motions for preliminary injunctive relief and class certification, certifying a class
consisting of “all individuals who will in the future (1)
stand on a public street in the State of Alabama for
the purpose of soliciting employment, business, or
contributions from the occupant of a vehicle, or (2) loiter, remain, or wander in a public place in the State
of Alabama for the purpose of begging.” D.Ct. ECF No.
84, at 10; see Pet. App. 4a.
Respondent then moved for summary judgment.
Pet. App. 4a. In response, Petitioner declined to defend the statutes under any level of First Amendment
2 Respondent also named the City of Montgomery and Montgom-
ery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham as defendants, but they
were dismissed from the case after reaching settlement agreements. Pet. App. 3a n.4.
7
scrutiny, instead conceding that Respondent was entitled to judgment as a matter of law under the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Smith v. City of Fort Lauderdale, which holds that begging, “[l]ike other charitable solicitation,” is “speech entitled to First Amendment protection.” 177 F.3d 954, 956 (11th Cir. 1999).
The district court thus granted Respondent summary
judgment and permanent injunctive relief. Pet. App.
15a–16a.
Petitioner appealed and filed a petition for initial
en banc review, arguing that the Eleventh Circuit
should take the case en banc to overturn its decision
in Smith. See Ct. App. ECF No. 19, at 1. The Eleventh
Circuit denied the petition and affirmed the district
court’s summary judgment order. Ct. App. ECF No.
66; Pet. App. 1a–14a.
The court of appeals began by examining the text
and application of each statute. The court explained
that the Alabama Code does not define the term “begging,” but that its ordinary meaning at the time of the
begging statute’s enactment was “to ask for charitable
relief for the poor.” Pet. App. 6a. The court observed
that while the begging statute “criminalizes begging
alone,” id., the pedestrian solicitation statute additionally prohibits “charitable solicitation for nonprofit
or religious organizations or solicitation of support for
political candidates,” id. at 7a.
Because Petitioner did not defend the pedestrian
solicitation statute’s application to non-begging charitable solicitation, the court treated all non-begging
applications of the statute as “constitutionally impermissible.” Pet. App. 8a–9a (quoting Moody v.
NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707, 726 (2024)).
8
With respect to the statutes’ begging applications,
the court recognized that Smith had already held that
begging is speech protected under the First Amendment. Pet. App. 12a. The statute in Smith, however,
passed muster because it narrowly restricted begging
on beaches. Id. at 12a n.13. Alabama’s begging and
pedestrian solicitation statutes, by contrast, applied
“throughout public areas of Alabama,” providing no
“alternative channels of communication” like “begging in streets, on sidewalks, and in many other public fora.” Id. (quoting Smith, 177 F.3d at 956–57). Petitioner conceded that, if begging is protected speech,
then Alabama “cannot broadly restrict panhandling
in the manner its laws provide.” Id.
Because Petitioner failed to identify any constitutionally permissible applications of either statute, the
court of appeals affirmed the district court’s grant of
summary judgment and permanent injunctive relief
to Respondent. Pet. App. 13a.
Petitioner filed a second petition for rehearing en
banc, which the Eleventh Circuit denied without requesting a response. Pet. App. 17a–18a.
REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION
I.
Federal Courts and State Supreme Courts
Uniformly Agree That Begging is Speech
Protected by the First Amendment.
As Petitioner acknowledges, Pet. 2, the Eleventh
Circuit’s decision is consistent with established precedent in every circuit to have considered the question
presented. The First, Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh,
Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have all
held that begging is protected speech under the First
9
Amendment. See, e.g., Cutting v. City of Portland, 802
F.3d 79, 83 & n.4 (1st Cir. 2015); Loper v. N.Y.C. Police Dep’t, 999 F.2d 699, 704 (2d Cir. 1993); Reynolds
v. Middleton, 779 F.3d 222, 225 (4th Cir. 2015); Clatterbuck v. City of Charlottesville, 708 F.3d 549, 553
(4th Cir. 2013), abrogated on other grounds by Reed v.
Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015); Speet v.
Schuette, 726 F.3d 867, 877–78 (6th Cir. 2013);
Gresham v. Peterson, 225 F.3d 899, 903–05 (7th Cir.
2000); Rodgers v. Bryant, 942 F.3d 451, 456 (8th Cir.
2019); Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach v. City
of Redondo Beach, 657 F.3d 936, 945 (9th Cir. 2011)
(en banc); Brewer v. City of Albuquerque, 18 F.4th
1205, 1219 (10th Cir. 2021); McCraw v. City of Oklahoma City, 973 F.3d 1057, 1066 (10th Cir. 2020);
Smith v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 177 F.3d 954, 956
(11th Cir. 1999).
Moreover, although the Third, Fifth, and D.C. Circuits have not addressed the issue, district courts in
the Fifth and D.C. Circuits have consistently concluded that begging is constitutionally protected
speech. See, e.g., Henagan v. City of Lafayette, No.
6:21-CV-03946, 2022 WL 4553055, at *4 (W.D. La.
Aug. 16, 2022) (noting “the foundational principle
that solicitation of a charitable donation of anything
of value by an individual (i.e., panhandling) is protected speech under the First Amendment”), objections overruled, 2022 WL 4546721 (W.D. La. Sept. 27,
2022); Blitch v. City of Slidell, 260 F. Supp. 3d 656,
663–64 (E.D. La. 2017); Burke v. Wiedefeld, No. 19CV-3145 (JMC), 2024 WL 3471241, at *5 (D.D.C. July
18, 2024); Narce v. Mervilus, No. CV 23-200 (BAH),
2023 WL 7128475, at *8 (D.D.C. Oct. 30, 2023); Brown
v. Gov’t of D.C., 390 F. Supp. 3d 114, 124 (D.D.C.
10
2019) (Jackson, J.). And Respondent has not found
any contrary decisions by district courts within the
Third Circuit.
State supreme courts have also consistently recognized begging to be constitutionally protected
speech. See, e.g., Benefit v. City of Cambridge, 679
N.E.2d 184, 187–88 (Mass. 1997) (“[T]here is no distinction of constitutional dimension between soliciting funds for oneself and for charities and therefore …
peaceful begging constitutes communicative activity
protected by the First Amendment.”); Mass. Coal. for
the Homeless v. City of Fall River, 158 N.E.3d 856, 860
(Mass. 2020); City of Lakewood v. Willis, 375 P.3d
1056, 1059 (Wash. 2016) (“The First Amendment protects charitable appeals for funds, including appeals
in the form of begging or panhandling.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); Champion v.
Kentucky, 520 S.W.3d 331, 334–35 (Ky. 2017); cf. L.A.
All. For Survival v. City of Los Angeles, 993 P.2d 334,
340 (Cal. 2000) (restriction on begging “plainly implicates the liberty of speech clause of the California
Constitution”).
In short, not only is there no division of authority
on the question presented for this Court to resolve,
but there is widespread consensus across federal and
state courts that Petitioner’s position is wrong.
II.
Petitioner’s Position is Foreclosed by This
Court’s Precedent.
The lower courts have universally rejected
Petitioner’s position for good reason: It is foreclosed
by this Court’s long and unbroken line of precedent
recognizing that speech seeking charitable relief is
11
protected by the First Amendment. And even apart
from that precedent, Petitioner’s rationale for making
begging a new category of unprotected speech is
fatally flawed, as Petitioner misunderstands both the
historical inquiry and the historical record.
A.
This Court Has Repeatedly and
Consistently Held That the First
Amendment
Protects
Speech
Seeking Charitable Relief.
The question presented by Petitioner was answered in Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U.S. 620 (1980), which holds
that “charitable appeals for funds, on the street or
door to door, involve a variety of speech interests—
communication of information, the dissemination and
propagation of views and ideas, and the advocacy of
causes—that are within the protection of the First
Amendment.” Id. at 632. That is precisely the speech
that the challenged statutes prohibit. See supra pp.
5–6 (describing the statutes and the speech that has
triggered citations under them).
Schaumburg is just one of many Supreme Court
decisions recognizing First Amendment protection for
charitable solicitations. Decades earlier, in Cantwell
v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), the Court reversed the convictions of several Jehovah’s witnesses
who were charged with violating a state law prohibiting individuals from “solicit[ing] money, services, subscriptions or any valuable thing for any alleged religious, charitable or philanthropic cause” after they
went door-to-door requesting contributions in exchange for religious pamphlets. Id. at 301–02. The
Court held that the law intruded on the defendants’
12
First Amendment right to solicit assistance in support
of their religious beliefs. Id. at 303–04.3
In the decades since Schaumburg, the Court has
remained steadfast on the First Amendment’s protection of face-to-face solicitation of donations. See Riley
v. Nat’l Fed’n of the Blind of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781,
789, 801 (1988) (“[S]olicitation of charitable contributions is protected speech” and “a speaker’s rights are
not lost merely because compensation is received.”);
Int’l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505
U.S. 672, 677 (1992) (“It is uncontested that the solicitation at issue in this case is a form of speech protected under the First Amendment.”); United States
v. Kokinda, 497 U.S. 720, 725 (1990) (plurality opinion) (“Solicitation is a recognized form of speech protected by the First Amendment.”); see also, e.g., Williams-Yulee v. Fla. Bar, 575 U.S. 433, 442 (2015);
Sec’y of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467
U.S. 947, 959 (1984); Heffron v. Int’l Soc’y for Krishna
Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 647 (1981); Hynes
v. Mayor & Council of Borough of Oradell, 425 U.S.
610, 616–18 (1976).
In response to this unbroken wall of precedent, Petitioner asserts that the Court has never extended
First Amendment protection to “begging.” Pet. 19.
“[T]o the contrary,” Petitioner says, “the Court has
3 Although Cantwell involved the free exercise clause, the Court
has subsequently cited Cantwell for the proposition that soliciting funds involves interests protected by the First Amendment’s
guarantee of freedom of speech. Schaumburg, 444 U.S. at 629
(collecting cases).
13
consistently maintained that solicitation is ‘undoubtedly’ regulable.’” Id. (quoting Schaumburg, 444 U.S.
at 632). The latter point is a non-sequitur: Of course
solicitation is regulable—all constitutionally-protected speech is regulable so long as the applicable
level of First Amendment scrutiny is satisfied. That
basic principle of constitutional law provides no support for Petitioner’s claim that begging restrictions receive no First Amendment scrutiny at all.
Petitioner fares no better in his efforts to extract
begging from the charitable solicitation this Court has
subjected to First Amendment scrutiny. Although Petitioner does not contest the Eleventh Circuit’s definition of begging—“to ask for charitable relief for the
poor,” Pet. App. 6a, he makes no meaningful effort to
explain why, in his view, asking for charitable relief
for the poor is qualitatively different from the requests for charitable relief this Court has recognized
as protected, such as charitable relief for the disabled,
see Riley, 487 U.S. 781.
To the extent that Petitioner means to distinguish
the solicitation of charitable relief on behalf of oneself
from charitable solicitation on behalf of a nonprofit
organization, this is not a distinction that Alabama’s
statutes allow—both the pedestrian solicitation statute and the begging statute criminalize speech seeking charitable relief for the poor without regard to the
speaker (and indeed the pedestrian statute extends to
any sort of charitable relief, whether it be for the poor,
the environment, a religious cause, or otherwise). See
supra pp. 5–6. Moreover, “it would be illogical to restrict the right of the individual beggar to seek assis-
14
tance for himself while protecting the right of a charitable organization to solicit funds on his behalf. Such
a conclusion would require citizens to organize in order to avail themselves of free speech guarantees, a
requirement that contradicts the policies underlying
the First Amendment.” Benefit, 679 N.E.2d at 188.
The petition spends several pages emphasizing
the relationship between charitable solicitation and
“advocacy of public issues,” Pet. 20–22, but that also
is not a basis for distinguishing the Alabama statutes.
Respondent was cited for holding a sign saying,
“HOMELESS. Today it is me, tomorrow it could be
you,” D.Ct. ECF No. 106, ¶ 9, a message indistinguishable from that used by many charities serving
homeless clients. Indeed, the petition treats the begging statute and the pedestrian solicitation statute—
which applies to all charitable solicitation, including
solicitation for religious, nonprofit, and political
causes—as prohibiting the same speech and as raising the same First Amendment question. See Pet. 15.
But even if Alabama had only criminalized requests for personal financial support isolated from
any additional messaging, this Court’s precedent establishes that the First Amendment would apply. To
start, “[i]t is not clear that a professional’s speech is
necessarily commercial whenever it relates to that
person’s financial motivation for speaking.” Riley, 487
U.S. at 795. But “even a communication that does no
more than propose a commercial transaction is entitled to the coverage of the First Amendment.” Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761, 767 (1993). This Court has
recognized the First Amendment’s application to
15
speech far less valuable than communicating a personal need for charitable assistance: “Most of what we
say to one another lacks religious, political, scientific,
educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value
(let alone serious value), but it is still sheltered from
government regulation.” United States v. Stevens, 559
U.S. 460, 479 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). “This is because the First Amendment entrusts
“the speaker and the audience, not the government,
[to] assess the value of the information presented.”
Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 767; accord, e.g., Riley, 487 U.S.
at 791 (“[T]he government, even with the purest of
motives, may not substitute its judgment as to how
best to speak for that of speakers and listeners; free
and robust debate cannot thrive if directed by the government.”). The First Amendment applies as fully to
“ordinary people engaged in unsophisticated expression” as it does to “professional publishers.” Hurley v.
Irish-Am. Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Grp. of Bos., 515
U.S. 557, 574 (1995).
It is no surprise, then, that the lower courts have
consistently rejected any First Amendment distinction between charitable solicitation for organizations
and charitable solicitation for personal relief. See, e.g.,
Loper, 999 F.2d at 704 (“We see little difference between those who solicit for organized charities and
those who solicit for themselves in regard to the message conveyed. The former are communicating the
needs of others while the latter are communicating
their personal needs. Both solicit the charity of others.
The distinction is not a significant one for First
Amendment purposes.”); Speet, 726 F.3d at 877
(“[T]here is no ‘legally justifiable distinction’ between
‘begging for one’s self and solicitation by organized
16
charities.’”); Smith, 177 F.3d at 956 (“Like other charitable solicitation, begging is speech entitled to First
Amendment protection.”); Gresham, 225 F.3d at 904
(“[T]he Court’s analysis in Schaumburg suggests little reason to distinguish between beggars and charities in terms of the First Amendment protection for
their speech.”); Rodgers, 942 F.3d at 456 (“The fact
that [beggars] intend to ask for money does not mean
that their speech is unprotected. To the contrary, asking for charity or gifts, whether ‘on the street or door
to door,’ is protected First Amendment speech.”).
Petitioner offers no persuasive response to this
mountain of authority.
B.
Petitioner’s Proposed Test for
Creating
New
Categories
of
Unprotected Speech Has No Basis in
First Amendment Doctrine.
Petitioner’s argument is foreclosed not only by this
Court’s longstanding precedents applying the First
Amendment to charitable solicitation specifically, but
also by longstanding First Amendment law generally.
Petitioner urges the Court to take the extraordinary
step of recognizing a new category of unprotected
speech outside the few limited categories “long familiar to the bar,” Stevens, 559 U.S. at 468 (citation omitted), but his rationale for doing so has no support in
First Amendment doctrine.
“From 1791 to the present … the First Amendment has permitted restrictions upon the content of
speech in a few limited areas, and has never include[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations.” Id. at 468 (citation and internal quotation
17
marks omitted). These long-recognized historical categories—including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct—
“are well-defined and narrowly limited classes of
speech, the prevention and punishment of which have
never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.” Id. at 468–69 (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). There is no dispute that the speech
criminalized by Alabama does not fall into one of the
existing categories; to the contrary, the challenged
statutes restrict holding signs and engaging in faceto-face conversation in a traditional public forum,
which is precisely the sort of pure expression that lies
at the heart of the First Amendment. E.g., McCullen
v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464, 476, 488–89 (2014) (emphasizing First Amendment protection for face-to-face
conversation on sidewalks); City of Ladue v. Gilleo,
512 U.S. 43, 48 (1994) (holding that “signs are a form
of expression protected by the Free Speech Clause”).
Although the Court has contemplated the possibility of additional “categories of speech that have been
historically unprotected,” Stevens, 559 U.S. at 472, it
has rejected every attempt to expand the list in recent
decades, expressing “reluctan[ce] to ‘exempt a category of speech from the normal prohibition on content-based restrictions,’” Nat’l Inst. of Fam. & Life Advocs. v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755, 767 (2018) (quoting
United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 722 (2012)). 4
4 See, e.g., Nat’l Inst. of Fam. & Life Advocs., 585 U.S. at 768
(refusing to recognize “professional speech” as an exempt category); Alvarez, 567 U.S. at 722 (rejecting the suggestion that
“false statements generally should constitute a new category of
(cont’d)
18
Petitioner nonetheless urges the Court to create
a new exception here because some (but not all) of the
original states had laws that punished begging. Pet.
7–9. As discussed below, infra II.C, Petitioner misunderstands the import of the historical sources he cites.
But more fundamentally, Petitioner misunderstands
the role of history in First Amendment analysis.
First, this Court’s First Amendment caselaw has
never focused on a single moment in time, but instead
has looked to whether “[f]rom 1791 to the present,”
speech has been unprotected. Stevens, 559 U.S. at 468
(emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted);
see also Williams-Yulee, 575 U.S. at 462 (Scalia, J.,
dissenting) (“Our cases hold that speech enjoys the
full protection of the First Amendment unless a widespread and longstanding tradition ratifies its regulation.”). Yet Petitioner rests his entire historical argument on a snapshot of state and local statutes from
1791.
unprotected speech”); Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786,
794 (2011) (refusing to “create a wholly new category of contentbased regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at
children”); Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 451 n.3 (2011) (acknowledging “there is no suggestion that [picketing at funerals]
falls within one of the categorical exclusions from First Amendment protection” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Stevens,
559 U.S. at 472 (“declin[ing] to carve out from the First Amendment any novel exception” for animal cruelty). Informing this
line of cases is the “danger” that the “real reason for governmental proscription” of whole categories of speech is to suppress the
“ideas expressed by speech … and not its objective effects.”
Brown, 564 U.S. at 799; see also Cohen v. California, 403 U.S.
15, 26 (1971) (rejecting the “facile assumption that one can forbid
particular words without also running a substantial risk of suppressing ideas in the process”).
19
Making matters worse, Petitioner takes his snapshot at a time at which the First Amendment did not
even apply to the States. See Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 250-51 (1833); cf. Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L. by & through Levy, 594
U.S. 180, 212 (2021) (Thomas, J., dissenting). This
Court has rejected reliance on early state statutes to
define the scope of the First Amendment—recognizing, for example, the First Amendment’s application
to profanity, e.g., Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist., 594 U.S.
at 191; Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 19 (1971),
even though all fourteen original states “made either
blasphemy or profanity, or both, statutory crimes,”
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 482 (1957).
Indeed, there are many early state statutes criminalizing speech undisputably protected by the First
Amendment today. E.g., Digest of the Laws of the
State of Alabama 398 (John G. Aikin ed., 1833) (making it a crime punishable by whipping for “any slave
or free person of color [to] preach to, exhort, or harangue any slave or slaves, or free persons of color,
unless in the presence of five respectable slave-holders”); id. at 397 (making it a crime for “[a]ny person . . .
to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell,
read, or write”); Michael Kent Curtis, The Curious
History of Attempts to Suppress Antislavery Speech,
Press, and Petition in 1835-37, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 785,
802 (1995) (describing laws outlawing advocacy
against slavery). Vagrancy laws in particular “went
virtually unchallenged” in court because attorneys
were not “widely available to the indigent” until the
1960s. City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 54 n.20
(1999) (plurality opinion).
20
Although the Court recognized three terms ago
that its decisions “have often insisted on protecting
even some historically unprotected speech,” Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, 73 (2023), Petitioner
asserts that other recent decisions “decide[] this case
in favor of the State,” Pet. 18. None of the decisions
that Petitioner cites carve out new categories of
speech from First Amendment protection based solely
on founding-era state statutes, as Petitioner urges the
Court to do here.
In Houston Community College v. Wilson, 595
U.S. 468 (2022), the Court considered whether a public college board of trustees’ verbal reprimand of one
of its elected members could give rise to a First
Amendment retaliation claim. Explaining that a
“[l]ong settled and established practice” receives
“great weight” in evaluating constitutional disputes,
the Court resolved the case by examining practices
“throughout our history,” including examples from as
recently as 2016. Id. at 474, 476 (quoting The Pocket
Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655, 689 (1929)); see also id. at
477–80 (considering “contemporary doctrine” in addition to history).
City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of
Austin, LLC, 596 U.S. 61 (2022), also provides no support for Petitioner’s exclusive focus on founding-era
state statutes. In assessing a city law that distinguished between on-premises and off-premises advertising signs, the Court parsed judicial precedent—including precedent applying the First Amendment to
regulations of solicitation, id. at 72–73—to decide
what level of scrutiny should apply. The Court’s examination of historical practices, moreover, focused
on “[t]he unbroken tradition” of billboard regulation
21
over “the last 50-plus years”—not a snapshot of state
statutes in 1791. Id. at 75.
Finally, Vidal v. Elster, 602 U.S. 286 (2024), was
a “narrow” decision considering whether a law prohibiting the trademark of another person’s name was
consistent with the First Amendment. The decision
disclaims any intent to “set forth a comprehensive
framework” even for trademark cases, much less the
First Amendment writ large. Id. at 310. Vidal, moreover, considers not a single moment but the “duration
of [U.S.] history,” id. at 296, as reflected in the common law and numerous judicial decisions, id. at 296–
308.
In short, none of these cases support Petitioner’s
effort to disregard the Court’s traditional First
Amendment framework.
C.
Petitioner
Misunderstands
the
Import of the State Statutes He
Cites.
Even if the Court were to accept Petitioner’s premise that founding-era state statutes are an adequate
basis for carving out a new category of speech from
the First Amendment, the state statutes that Petitioner cites would not warrant a carveout for begging.
Petitioner’s historical argument boils down to the
claim that states during the Founding era had vagrancy laws. Pet. 7–9. This is shaky originalism right
out of the gate, given that the justifications underpinning historical vagrancy laws—and indeed the laws
themselves—have already been deemed largely unconstitutional. The Thirteenth Amendment forecloses
the theory of involuntary servitude that undergirded
22
many of the founding-era vagrancy laws, and the
Fourteenth Amendment forecloses the use of vagrancy laws to “maintain … racial hierarchy,” as attempted by southern states in the wake of the Civil
War. Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146, 153 (2019); see
also Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S.
156, 161–62 (1972) (striking down the city’s vagrancy
ordinance that derived from English poor laws, noting
that the conditions that spawned those laws no longer
existed yet the “archaic … definitions of vagrants” remained). And, of course, the First Amendment now
applies to the states, something that was not true in
the Founding era. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S.
652, 666 (1925).
But even aside from their highly questionable pedigree, founding-era state vagrancy laws are unhelpful
to Petitioner because they criminalized the conduct of
voluntary idleness, not the communicative aspect of
begging. See Brief for Prof. William P. Quigley as
Amicus Curiae in Support of Plaintiff-Appellee at 12–
13, Singleton v. Taylor, No. 23-11163 (11th Cir. Sept.
13, 2023). Indeed, while it may be true that “Alabama
first regulated vagrancy over 200 years ago,” Pet. 1,
Alabama’s prohibition on begging as expression dates
back only to 1977, Ala. Acts 1977, No. 607, p. 812,
§ 5540; Commentary, Ala. Code § 13A-11-9. Alabama’s original vagrancy law says nothing about begging or beggars at all; it simply commands that every
person “shall apply himself to some honest calling for
his support,” punishing those repeatedly found “sauntering about.” Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama 438 (John G. Aikin ed., 1833).
23
Before the 1977 amendment, Alabama’s vagrancy
law “punished one’s status; it was aimed at a mode of
life.” Commentary, Ala. Code § 13A-11-9. Begging was
not outlawed during this time; to the contrary, state
law allowed a person to “ask[] [for] charity within the
county in which he has a known place of residence.”
Ala. 1940 Code Tit. 14 § 441. Only when an able-bodied person adopted a lifestyle of begging “from place
to place,” far from their home, could they be punished
for being a “tramp.” Id.
The recent vintage of Alabama’s restriction on begging as speech is consistent with the national trend.
Throughout the nation’s early years, vagrancy laws
targeted a person’s idleness, not their expression. “At
common law a vagrant” was defined as “an idle person
who is without visible means of support and who, although able to work, refuses to do so.” Caleb Foote, Vagrancy-Type Law and Its Administration, 104 U. Pa.
L. Rev. 603, 609 (1956); William P. Quigley, Reluctant
Charity: Poor Laws in the Original Thirteen States, 31
U. Rich. L. Rev. 111, 164 (1997) [hereinafter Reluctant Charity] (“[U]nder the poor laws, refusal to work
by the able-bodied was a crime.”). Idleness, not expression, was the target.
In Georgia, for example, the legislature complained that there were “able-bodied men, capable of
laboring for their support” yet whose “idle and disorderly life render[ed] themselves incapable of paying”
their taxes. Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia
1755-1800, at 568 (Horatio Marbury & William H.
Crawford eds., 1802). A person “found … wandering,
strolling, loitering about or misbehaving himself”
24
could be charged as a vagabond, but would be acquitted if they had gainful employment or signed up for
military service. Id. at 569.
To be sure, some state vagrancy laws treated begging as evidence of voluntary idleness, but typically
only when performed by “sturdy beggars,” e.g., A Digest of the Laws of South-Carolina, Containing the
Public Statute Law of the State, Down to the Year
1822, at 416 (Benjamin James ed., 1822)—that is, “an
able-bodied man begging without cause, and often
with violence.” Sturdy Beggar, Oxford English Dictionary (online ed. Sept. 2025). As Petitioner acknowledges, throughout history, those who were unable to
work could beg in order to gather the resources they
needed to survive. Pet. 6.
Petitioner also acknowledges that “[t]he basic theory” of early vagrancy laws “was to distinguish those
who could work (but refused) from those [who] could
not,” Pet. 1, not to prohibit a category of speech. Whatever the merits of compulsory labor in 1791, that theory “no longer fits the facts” of society today. Edwards
v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 174 (1941). During the
Founding era, local governments had a duty to provide aid to their settled residents who fell into poverty. See, e.g., Reluctant Charity, supra, at 116. The
potential financial cost of providing such assistance
motivated jurisdictions to assume a heavy hand over
how their residents spent their day.5 Today, Alabama
5 The duty to provide poor aid prompted other intrusive
measures, such as Connecticut’s instruction that towns should
(cont’d)
25
has no legal obligation to support all of its poor residents, and it lacks any justification to punish them for
being idle. Any lingering interest the state might have
to force people to labor was dispelled by the passage
of the 13th Amendment’s ban on involuntary servitude. U.S. Const. amend. XIII, § 1. Just as “respect for
past judgments also means respecting their limits,”
Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. 461, 491
(2025), respect for history means respecting the limits
of what it teaches.
Without evidence that the expressive elements of
begging were universally and consistently proscribed,
Petitioner is left to rely on the mere existence of vagrancy laws writ large. Pet. 14. Thus, Petitioner posits that, at the Founding, “[v]agrants were considered
‘paupers, and as such they forfeited all civil, political,
and social rights.’” Id. (quoting Reluctant Charity, supra, at 160). Petitioner’s suggestion that people who
lacked rights during the Founding era have no speech
rights today flies in the face of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the rights of citizenship to all
Americans. See, e.g., City of Grants Pass v. Johnson,
603 U.S. 520, 557 (2024) (emphasizing that “many
substantive legal protections and provisions of the
Constitution may have important roles to play when
States and cities seek to enforce their laws against the
homeless”). Indeed, the drafters of the Fourteenth
Amendment identified vagrancy laws as an example
of the evil that the Amendment should eliminate. See,
“diligently inspect into the affairs and management of all persons in their town” to ensure that household finances were not
being mismanaged. Reluctant Charity, supra, at 121 (internal
quotation marks omitted).
26
e.g., Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146, 168–69 (2019)
(Thomas, J., concurring); Gen. Bldg. Contractors
Ass’n, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 387 (1982)
(“Congress plainly perceived” laws “penalizing vagrancy” as “consciously conceived methods of resurrecting the incidents of slavery”).
Petitioner essentially reasons that because states
once criminalized poverty, they now have license to
criminalize expressions of poverty—which repeats the
same conceptual mistakes that this Court rejected in
Stevens and Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786 (2011). In Stevens, the government cited a long history of regulating animal cruelty,
but the Court rejected the government’s contention
that this history supported restrictions on depictions
of such cruelty. Stevens, 559 U.S. at 469. In Brown,
the Court held that a ban on selling violent video
games to children triggered First Amendment scrutiny, even though children historically lacked many of
the same constitutional rights as adults. Brown, 564
U.S. at 795 & n.3. Neither a history of regulating related conduct nor of regulating a group of people is a
basis for relegating a category of speech into “a First
Amendment Free Zone.” Stevens, 559 U.S. at 469 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In attempting to shift the burden to Respondent to
identify “evidence that founding era governments protected a constitutional right to beg,” Pet. 14, Petitioner gets the test exactly backwards. The First
Amendment establishes the default principle that the
state “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of
speech,” U.S. Const. amend. I, and content-based re-
27
strictions come with a presumption of unconstitutionality that the government must rebut, e.g., Stevens,
559 U.S. at 468. For a category of speech to be unprotected, the government must show “persuasive evidence that a novel restriction on content is part of a
long (if heretofore unrecognized) tradition of proscription.” Brown, 564 U.S. at 792. Petitioner’s snapshot of
state vagrancy laws falls far short of satisfying that
standard.
III.
The
Question
Presented
Exceptionally Important.
Is
Not
Most of the social ills that Petitioner insists render
his
petition
exceptionally
important—public
urination, defecation, intoxication, “illegal urban
encampments,” “the open use of illegal drugs,” Pet.
23—involve non-expressive conduct that has nothing
to do with the First Amendment, the question
presented, or the Eleventh Circuit’s decision below.
Petitioner’s complaints about begging, meanwhile,
rest on the false premise that no restrictions on
begging or charitable solicitation are constitutionally
permissible if the First Amendment protects such
speech. But “[s]oliciting financial support is
undoubtedly subject to reasonable regulation,” Vill. of
Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 444 U.S.
620, 632 (1980), so long as the government
demonstrates under appropriate scrutiny that the
regulation avoids an “intru[sion] upon the rights of
free speech,” id. at 631 (quoting Thomas v. Collins,
323 U.S. 516, 540–41 (1945)); see also City of Austin,
28
596 U.S. at 72 (“[T]he First Amendment allows for
regulations of solicitation[.]”).
Indeed, this Court has regularly upheld laws
restricting solicitation under varying levels of
scrutiny. E.g., Williams-Yulee v. Fla. Bar, 575 U.S.
433, 457 (2015) (upholding regulation that prohibited
judicial candidates from personally soliciting
campaign funds because the regulation narrowly
served the compelling interest of ensuring public
confidence in the judiciary); Heffron v. Int’l Soc’y for
Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 649–50,
655 (1981) (upholding a content-neutral regulation
that prohibited solicitation at a state fair because the
regulation served the significant government interest
of crowd management); United States v. Kokinda, 497
U.S. 720, 737 (1990) (upholding as reasonable a
regulation that prohibited solicitation on United
States Post Office property); Int’l Soc’y for Krishna
Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 683 (1992)
(upholding as reasonable a regulation that prohibited
face-to-face solicitation in airport terminals).
Petitioner made the unusual and dispositive
decision to offer no defense in this litigation of
Alabama’s begging and pedestrian solicitation
statutes under any type of heightened scrutiny. He
has never attempted to identify the appropriate level
of scrutiny required here—much less apply such
scrutiny to the statutes at issue. Pet. 2–3 (stating,
without further analysis, that examining begging
laws under heightened scrutiny leads to the “wrong
results”). To the contrary, Petitioner has conceded
that if the First Amendment applies to the challenged
statues,
Alabama
“cannot
broadly
restrict
panhandling in the manner [those] laws provide.” Pet.
29
App. 12a. That concession controls this case, but it
does not mean that courts will invalidate other, more
carefully tailored restrictions on solicitation that do
not discriminate based on topic, subject matter, or
viewpoint. And holding state and local governments
to the First Amendment does not limit their power to
respond to non-expressive behavior. See, e.g., Grants
Pass, 603 U.S. at 541–43. Petitioner’s policy concerns
are thus unfounded.
CONCLUSION
The petition for a writ of certiorari should be
denied.
Respectfully submitted,
Micah West
Kelsi Brown Corkran
Ellen Degnan
Counsel of Record
Kirsten Anderson
Joseph W. Mead
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW Tinesha Zandamela
CENTER
INSTITUTE FOR
400 Washington Ave.
CONSTITUTIONAL ADVOCACY
Montgomery, AL 36104 AND PROTECTION,
GEORGETOWN LAW
William H. Knight
600 New Jersey Ave., NW
Eric S. Tars
Washington, DC 20001
NATIONAL HOMELESS(202) 661-6728
NESS LAW CENTER
kbc74@georgetown.edu
1400 16th St., NW
Washington, DC 20036
JANUARY 12, 2026
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