JUDGE FINDS METRO'S RESTRICTIONS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

People can dance, chant and protest without a permit on Metro's street-level property, a federal judge ruled yesterday, finding unconstitutional some of Metro's restrictions on demonstrations and other "free speech activities."

However, Metro can continue to limit protests, advertising and other forms of expression underground in the subway stations, U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin said.

Metro lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to delay the effect of the order while they appeal. The court has not acted on that request. Metro officials said in a statement that the transit authority "believes its regulations governing access to authority property are constitutional."

Yesterday's ruling narrowed Sporkin's order Wednesday in which he had declared unconstitutional all of Metro's rules governing political and commercial expression on the subway. Metro officials, worried that the order would undo their tight restrictions on advertising and sales in the subway, asked Sporkin for clarification.

Sporkin's latest order left intact his earlier ruling that Metro's rules requiring protesters to first obtain a permit from Metro headquarters, during business hours, to be "an impermissible prior restraint on free speech."

Metro's rules "impose too great a burden on an individual seeking spontaneously or otherwise to express his or her First Amendment rights."

Sporkin also found unconstitutional Metro's rule requiring "free speech activities . . . to take place in a conversational tone" and prohibiting "chanting, dancing, shouting, outcries or . . . musical instruments."

The ruling grew out of a lawsuit filed by two groups of advocates for the homeless and the Gray Panthers. They sued after Metro security officials arrested several demonstrators in 1987 at the Farragut West Station who were protesting the system's installation of gates to keep people out of the stations at night.

In one incident, Metro arrested Mitch Snyder, an advocate for the homeless, and two others for distributing leaflets without a permit on the sidewalk, which is owned by Metro.

About a week later, Metro issued a permit for four persons to protest at the station. When six demonstrators started praying at the station, Metro arrested two of them.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Eugene Hamilton dismissed the criminal charges against the protesters last year, ruling then that Metro's rules were unconstitutional. But Metro did not consider Hamilton's action binding and continued to enforce the rules, Sporkin said.

"It was so blatantly unconstitutional," said Carol Fennelly, who was arrested in the second incident. "Metro believes they can create a little fiefdom in which they suspend the First Amendment."

Metro argued that the restrictions assure the safety and convenience of riders passing through the stations to reach the trains.

Staff writer Tracy Thompson contributed to this report.

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