When Robert Norse stood up at a 2002 Santa Cruz City Council meeting and gave a Nazi salute mocking the council, it was hard to imagine that it would launch what will probably be a decade-long fight between Norse and the city. Nine years later, the much-covered case will soon be going to trial for the first time.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal of a lower court’s decision to allow Norse’s lawsuit to proceed. City lawyers filed the petition over the summer, and the nation’s highest court upheld a December ruling by an 11-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal that a judge should have heard evidence in the case. Next, courts will have to decide whether or not it was right for then Mayor Chris Krohn to throw Norse out of the meeting and have him arrested when the longtime council critic refused to leave.
The city has spent at least $150,000 so far on this case and will end up spending much more if they lose. Any possible settlement with homeless advocate Norse doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Norse is asking the city to pay for all his legal fees, loosen public comment laws for council meetings, and repeal a sleeping ban that forbids camping on city property between 1 pm and 8:30am.
Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
