The North Central Regional Library District maintains Internet filters on its computers to block websites and images considered “harmful to children.” Library patrons were blocked from accessing numerous websites, including sites about drug and alcohol addiction, an art gallery website, health information websites, the “personals” section of Craigslist.org, the MySpace pages of presidential candidates, the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra website, and womenandguns.com, a site maintained by the Second Amendment Foundation.

Several patrons and the Second Amendment Foundation sued the library in federal court for violating federal and state free speech protections. They claim the library’s filtering policy is overbroad and rises to the level of prior restraint of speech. They also argue that the filtering policy is an impermissible content-based restriction on speech. The U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington asked the Washington Supreme Court to address whether the library’s Internet filtering policy violates the free speech protections in Article 1, Section 5 of the Washington State Constitution.

The Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Barbara Madsen writing, concluded that a library can  filter Internet access for all patrons, including adults, without violating the Washington Constitution. The Court wrote that in many cases the Washington Constitution’s protection of free speech is no more expansive than the U.S. Constitution’s. In other contexts, the state constitution affords broader protections. For example,  time, place, and manner restrictions on free speech will be upheld only upon a showing of a “compelling state interest.” Additionally, unlike the First Amendment, the state constitution prohibits prior restraints on constitutionally-protected speech.

Analyzing whether the library’s filtering policies were overbroad, Chief Justice Madsen wrote:

The principle that a library has no obligation to provide universal coverage of all constitutionally protected speech applies to Internet access just as it does to the printed word in books, periodicals, and other material physically collected and made available to patrons. “The Internet is simply another method for making information available in a . . . library’” and “is ‘no more than a technological extension of the book stack.’” A.L.A., 539 U.S. at 207 (quoting S. Rep. No. 106-141, at 7 (1999)). Just as it is entitled to exercise its acknowledged discretion in amassing a collection of printed materials physically placed on the shelves in order to carry out its mission, it is entitled to exercise discretion when it comes to Internet access involving its facilities and equipment.

The discretion that public libraries enjoy in selecting materials for their collections is not merely a function of what a library can afford in terms of costs and space . . . .  [R]egardless of its resources a library need not place pornographic materials on its shelves, although such materials are constitutionally protected. It need not place children’s comic books on its shelves, although these, too, are constitutionally protected. As another example, if a private collector offered a library a collection of books at an attractive set price for the entire collection and the library purchased the collection, it would not have to include all of the books in its own collection and would not have to make them all available to its patrons.

The plaintiffs also argued that irrespective of the library’s policies, the Internet filtering software used was too aggressive, resulting in overbroad filtering of Internet content. The Court disagreed.

Here, if a library patron wants to access a web site or page that has been blocked by FortiGuard, he or she may send an e-mail to NCRL administrators asking for a manual override of the block. The site or page is reviewed to ascertain whether allowing access would accord with NCRL’s mission, its policy, and CIPA requirements. If not, the request is denied. If the request is approved, access will be allowed on all of NCRL’s public access computers.

Because adults can request and obtain unblocking of erroneously blocked sites, we conclude that on this record no overbreadth problem exists under article I, section 5 as a result of overblocking.

Ultimately, the Court held that just as a library may exercise discretion in its literary acquisitions, it can also decide what Internet content to provide.

Most importantly, just as a public library has discretion to make content-based decisions about which magazines and books to include in its collection, it has discretion to make decisions about Internet content. A public library can decide that it will not include pornography and other adult materials in its collection in accord with its mission and policies and, as explained, no unconstitutionality necessarily results. It can make the same choices about Internet access.

A public library has traditionally and historically enjoyed broad discretion to select materials to add to its collection of printed materials for its patrons’ use. We conclude that the same discretion must be afforded a public library to choose what materials from millions of Internet sites it will add to its collection and make available to its patrons.

The Court concluded that the filtering policy did not run afoul of the free speech protections in article I, section 5 of the Washington Constitution.

Jim Johnson concurred with the result in a separate opinion, Justice Tom Chambers (joined by Justices Sanders and Stephens) dissented. He wrote:

North Central Regional Library’s Internet filters reach admittedly constitutionally protected speech, and, we are informed, it 'does not and will not disable the filter at the request of an adult person." Simply put, the State has no interest in protecting adults from constitutionally protected materials on the Internet. These policies do exactly that. The filter should be removed on the request of an adult patron. Concerns that a child might see something unfortunate on the screen must be dealt with in a less draconian manner.

Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District, No. 82200-0 (briefs and argument). Whether library Internet filters violate the Washington Constitution’s free speech provision. The North Central Regional Library District maintains Internet filters on its computers to block web sites and images considered “harmful to children.” Several adult library patrons were blocked from accessing sites on topics such as firearms, art, abuse, dating, and health. They asked the library to unfilter the sites, but were refused. The patrons and a nonprofit whose site was among those blocked sued in federal court. As past cases have found that Washington’s free speech protections are stronger than their federal counterparts, the U.S. District Court asked the state Supreme Court to address the state constitutional issues before it proceeds with the federal claims.

Rivard v. State, No. 82431-2 (briefs and argument). Whether the statutory prohibition on possessing firearms for felons who commit a “serious offense” can be applied retroactively after the definition of “serious offense” was modified by the legislature.

State v. Lucero, No. 83777-5. Defendant appeals conviction of assault with a deadly weapon in the second degree and sentencing based on an offender score of 7.

State v. Peterson, No. 82089-9 (briefs and argument). Whether the state must prove the time limit requirement in order to convict a sex offender for failure to register.

State v. Vance, No. 81393-1 (briefs and argument). Whether the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury requires that a jury, not a judge, make findings of fact to support an exceptional consecutive sentence?

During the morning session, starting at 9:00 a.m., the Court will hear:

In re Fredric Sanai, No. 200,578-1. This case concerns whether a hearing examiner abused his discretion in several of the decisions he made related to his disbarment of Mr. Sanai for frivolous legal actions. All three of the decisions were procedural, including whether Mr. Sanai's brother was properly admitted to represent him, the denial of a continuance he requested for health reasons, and the denial of his request to subpoena three federal judges to explain their reasoning behind adverse rulings.

State v. James Kenyon, No. 81374-4. This case is on appeal from Division Two Court of Appeals, and originated in Mason County Superior Court. The question before the Court is whether a defendant's constitutional right to a speedy trial is violated when his trial is long delayed due to court congestion, and no discussion of whether a pro tempore judge is available was recorded.

Soon after getting out of prison Kenyon was seen carrying a gun on several occasions, and was tried and convicted of seven counts of illegal possession of a firearm. But due to congestion in the court's docket he was made to wait beyond the time limits set in rule (CrR 3.3). Kenyon argues that under the precedent set in a 1978 case (State v. Mack) his case should have been dismissed as violating his right to a speedy trial unless the trial court attempted to determine, on the record, if any pro tempore judges were available to hurry the process along.

During the afternoon session, starting at 1:30 p.m., the Court will hear:

Michael Jones v. State, No. 80787-6. This case is on appeal from Division One Court of Appeals, and originated in Snohomish County Superior Court. The Court will hear argument on the issue of whether a pharmacist whose business has been shut down by the state must exhaust all administrative remedies before bringing a tort action against the state, and whether state officials have absolute or qualified immunity against such a tort action.

Michael Jones owned a pharmacy franchise called the Medicine Shoppe, but after failing two consecutive inspections by the Washington Board of Pharmacy his license was suspended, causing his business to fail. He sued the Board of Pharmacy's Executive Director and the two investigators that gave him the failing scores for negligent supervision and intentional interference with a business expectancy. The state moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Executive Director had prosecutorial immunity, all three defendants had qualified immunity, and that their actions were in accord with state law. The trial court denied the motion for summary judgment, but the Court of Appeals reversed on all three grounds.

Sarah Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District, No. 82200-0. This case originated in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, but that court certified a question to the Washington State Supreme Court. The question is whether a library's Internet filtering policy violates the free speech protections in Article 1, Section 5 of the Washington State Constitution.

The North Central Regional Library District maintains Internet filters on its computers to block web sites and images considered "harmful to children." Several adult library patrons were blocked from accessing sites on topics such as firearms, art, abuse, dating, and health. They asked the library to unfilter the sites, but were refused. The patrons and a nonprofit whose site was among those blocked sued the library for violating federal and state free speech protections. Since past cases have found that Washington's free speech protections are stronger than their federal counterparts, the U.S. District Court asked the state supreme court to rule before it procedes with the federal claims.