Aaron Ross v. Wayne Early

Appellant Aaron Ross was arrested in 2008 and again in 2009 after he refused to obey Officer Wayne Early’s orders to stop leafleting in the middle of the sidewalk adjacent to Baltimore’s First Mariner Arena, which was hosting the circus. On both occasions, Ross had sought to exercise his First Amendment right to protest the circus’s treatment of animals by handing out leaflets to passersby, and on both occasions, Ross was conducting himself in a peaceful and unobtrusive manner. The sole basis for Early’s order was that Ross was violating what the majority opinion refers to as Baltimore’s…