Whether the Court should overrule Hill v. Colorado

QUESTION PRESENTED In Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000), this Court upheld a law that banned approaching within eight feet of another person in public fora outside abortion clinics “for the purpose of * * * engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling,” unless that person consents. On the day it was decided, members of this Court recognized that Hill stands “in stark contradiction of the constitutional principles [the Court] appl[ies] in all other contexts” outside abortion. Id. at 742 (Scalia, J., dissenting); see also id. at 765 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (Hill “contradicts more than a half century of well-established First Amendment principles”). Three Justices have since recognized that intervening precedents have “all but interred” Hills analysis, leaving it “an aberration in [the Court’s] case law.” City of Austin v. Reagan Nat'l Advert. of Austin, LLC, 142 8. Ct. 1464, 1484, 1491 (2022) (Thomas, J., joined by Gorsuch & Barrett, JJ., dissenting). And the Court has observed that Hill was a “distort[ion]” of “First Amendment doctrines.” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2276 & n.65 (2022). In June 2022, Westchester County passed a law materially identical to the one upheld in Hill. The Second Circuit upheld the law based solely on Hiil’s continued precedential force. The question presented is whether the Court should overrule Hill.