CA9: PC for arrest in the 1A context: ptf street performer’s arrest was without probable cause

Plaintiff is a Las Vegas Strip street performer, and she was arrested for conducting business with another performer without a license. The district court erred by deciding that the officers had probable cause to arrest plaintiff despite the First Amendment protections afforded to her expressive association. The full First Amendment protections accorded plaintiff’s own activities did not lapse because of what the other performer said or did without plaintiff’s direct participation. Rather, plaintiff’s and the other performer’s expressive association could not be the sole basis relied upon to attribute the other performer’s actions to plaintiff. To infer from their shared costumes and joint performance alone that there was an agreement to engage in a regulable transaction impermissibly burdened the right to engage in purely expressive activity and association. Santopietro v. Howell, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9028 (9th Cir. May 24, 2017).

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