Students and other protesters may have good intentions when gathering on a campus quad to support a cause, but Atlanta criminal defense attorney Andrew Fleischman said they need to be familiar with legal ramifications beforehand. For example, are you allowed to be in the space where the protest is happening?
“If you’re in a private space and somebody tells you to leave, you’ve got to go,” said Fleishman, a partner at Sessions & Fleischman, LLC. “So if you’re a private campus, like Emory, and someone says, ‘You can’t be here,’ at that point police can eject you.”
Fleischman has defended well-known clients like Nydia Tisdale, an independent journalist who was arrested several years ago for filming a Republican rally on private property. The property owner gave Tisdale permission to film, but changed his mind unbeknownst to her. She was asked to leave but refused.
“Ultimately, (the court of appeals) said it was okay to arrest her for that,” Fleischman said.
He said slightly different rules apply to public spaces, like the University of Georgia, where students set up an encampment this week.
“If you’re in a public space — you’re in the square, you’re in the quad — and you are not actively disrupting people, you’re not forbidding them entry or blocking them, that’s protected,” he said.
Blocking someone’s entry to a building, though, could be a crime, he said. So could touching a police officer.
“If you touch someone in a way that’s disagreeable to them, that’s a battery,” he explained. “If there’s any element of violence, if you’re offering violence in any way, which can be as little as taking a ‘fighting stance,’ that’s felony obstruction.
Last Thursday after 16 people from the Emory community were arrested, economics professor Caroline Fohlin was filmed pleading with an officer who was arresting a student.
It is worth watching this CNN video from the moment Emory Econ Professor @CarolineFohlin came across the violent arrest of a protester on campus and asked the police, with shock, "What are you doing?" That's all that prompted an officer to hurl her to the ground and handcuff her. https://t.co/QKNRqOoIiS pic.twitter.com/uYpXwKuc8D
— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) April 26, 2024
However, Fohlin was later filmed admitting she hit the officer “very lightly,” which Fleischman said was a crime.
“That was battery,” he said. “It was a mistake for her to say that. Battery is just unwanted touching.”
Fleischman said to detain a protester an officer just needs a “reasonable articulable suspicion,” or to say out loud why he thinks a person is suspicious. If you are arrested, he advises politeness. Give your name, show a form of ID and then be silent and comply, he said.
Fleischman advises anyone planning to protest on campus to prepare for the worst.
“There is a good chance you will be arrested and you should plan for that,” he said. “I mean, that’s part of civil disobedience, right? You’re probably not going to be able to be 100% sure where you’re allowed to be or what’s within the rules. So, memorize the phone number of a bondsman and a family member.”
