Betting on basketball analogy, Senate Dems try - and fail - to change home protests bill

Indiana Senate Democrats launched a last-ditch effort Monday to add language around picketers' rights to a bill that would criminalize protests outside homes.

Sen. Rodney Pol, D-Chesterton, hoped a basketball rule analogy would help win support from a Senate dominated by Republicans.

"So we are Indiana - we are a basketball state," Pol told the floor as he opened his pitch. "What this amendment does is it establishes what I call the 3-second rule."

Senate Bill 348, authored by Sen. Scott Baldwin, R-Noblesville, would make protesting or picketing outside a residence with the intent to harass a class C misdemeanor - the least severe misdemeanor possible in Indiana. Protestors could face arrest if law enforcement asks them to leave and they ignore the command.

Previously:Bill criminalizing protest outside someone's home advances out of Senate committee

But Pol's amendment, which is based on earlier testimony from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, would have clarified that police cannot arrest someone if they march up and down the street near the residence after being asked to disperse.

"What we don't want is an officer coming up and saying, 'OK, you guys can't stay here, you gotta move.' Then they start moving. And then when they come back, the officer says, 'Whoah, whoah, you can't come in front of this house again, you're gonna have to figure out a different route, we're gonna put you under arrest if you do.'"

The 3-second rule he referred to limits how much time an offensive player can be in the free throw lane while their team has control of the ball.

Analogy fails to win over bill's author

Baldwin kept the analogy going in his reply, but he wasn't buying it.

"So let's just say that every crime that would be 'around the basket,' if you will, of this particular set of circumstances, like criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, local noise ordinances, obstruction of traffic ... all of those things would have the propensity to allow a person to violate the crime, be told not to do it any longer, 'Please leave,' and then they could come back three seconds later," Baldwin said.

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"I fear that what we would be doing is completely nerfing the effectiveness of the bill by allowing this."

After that, Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis - who told his Senate colleagues earlier this month he was worried about the bill's implications for free speech - assured the floor that the amended language was specific to this proposed crime only. But the two Democrats failed to get enough Senators on board, and the amendment died during a voice vote. The bill will now move forward for a final Senate vote.

Pol's amendment tied to U.S. Supreme Court precedent

Courtney Curtis, assistant executive director at the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, previously told the Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law that people would still have the right to enter residential neighborhoods, distribute leaflets at houses, go door-to-door and march up and down the street. All of that is in line with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, she said.

They just wouldn't be allowed to concentrate outside someone’s home, Curtis said, as she testified in favor of the bill.

Co-author Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, touched on the genesis of the bill during that committee hearing.

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“I think as a society, we got to get out of picketing at people's homes,” he said Feb. 7.

“You want to picket somewhere, go do it, God bless you. But in people's homes … we got to get out of the Brett Kavanaugh situations and we got to get out of harassing people because we don't agree with their politics. That's crazy," Freeman continued, apparently referring to protests staged by abortion rights activists outside the Maryland home of the U.S. Supreme Court justice.

The Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law voted 8-0 to advance the bill a week later.

Call IndyStar courts reporter Johnny Magdaleno at 317-273-3188 or email him at jmagdaleno@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @IndyStarJohnny

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Senate Dems bet on basketball analogy to change home protests bill