Court Blocks Loud Preaching Outside Abortion Clinic

From State v. Andrade, decided Dec. 1, 2025 by Cumberland County (Maine) Superior Court Judge Darcie McElwee, but only recently posted on Westlaw:

Defendant is a Christian who feels it is his religious duty to share his beliefs with others. Defendant regularly prays, preaches, displays signs, plays religious music, and engages with members of the public at the corner of Elm and Congress Streets in Portland. Defendant’s signs and prayers frequently convey messages against medical procedures involving abortion. From 2023 through 2025, Defendant has engaged in this conduct at the same location on a roughly weekly basis, typically for three or four hours at a time. Often, but not always, Defendant loudly plays music through a mobile speaker and/or uses a microphone and speakers to amplify his voice. He is sometimes accompanied by other individuals also seeking to share their personal beliefs….

Lindsey Stevens, the Clime’s Health Center Manager, credibly testified that when Defendant uses amplifiers, his voice and/or music can be heard inside the examination and counseling rooms of the Clinic. On occasion, Stevens can hear Defendant’s music from her office in the back right corner of the Clinic—one of the farthest locations within the Clinic from Defendant’s typical location.

When amplification is used, Defendant’s conduct disrupts the provision of patient care at the Clinic. His amplified voice and music make it difficult for patients and care providers, including Stevens, to hear and understand each other. Patients are often distracted by the noise and exhibit physical signs of distress. On occasions when Defendant uses amplifiers, the Clinic moves patients to other rooms when possible. This can cause delays in patients receiving counseling and/or treatment. [The court also recounted police officers’ testimony that defendant used sound amplification, and was quite loud. -EV] …

Defendant testified that he does not intend for his preaching to be disruptive of medical services by using an amplifier to make his voice and music heard. Defendant also testified that he does not consider abortion to be a medical service. Defendant further testified that the fact that he could be heard from inside the Clinic was “incidental” to his intent and purpose.

Defendant acknowledged on cross examination that he refused to turn down his volume when repeatedly warned that his volume was disruptive to the Clinic: “Jesus told me to keep preaching.” Defendant testified that he frequently hears ambient city sounds which create noises louder than his preaching and music on the streets below the Clinic, such as fire engines and duck boats and, on one occasion, another protest with roughly three hundred people moving down Congress Street. As to his intent, the court does not find Defendant’s testimony credible….

Section 4864-B provides that it is a violation of the Maine Civil Rights Act for any person to

intentionally interfere or attempt to intentionally interfere with the exercise or enjoyment by any other person of rights secured by the United States Constitution or the laws of the United States or of rights secured by the Constitution of Maine or laws of the State by …

[d]uring the posted hours of operating after having been ordered by a law enforcement officer to cease such noise, at any time after the order, intentionally making noise that can be heard within a building and with the further intent…

[t]o interfere with the safe and effective delivery of those services within the building.

The court finds that the State has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant has repeatedly violated section 4684-B(2). On multiple occasions between 2023 and 2025 described in more detail above, Defendant used devices to amplify his speech and music while standing near the corner of Elm and Congress Streets, directly below the second-floor examination and counseling rooms of Planned Parenthood’s clinic.

The court finds that Defendant intended for his music and amplified voice to be heard inside patient rooms in the Clinic and that he did so with the further intent to interfere with the safe and effective delivery of services within the Clinic. The court makes this finding based on Defendant’s statement in State’s Exhibit 7 that “I wouldn’t be here doing this if they’re not here,” and the fact that Defendant repeatedly used amplifiers outside of 443 Congress Street, below examination rooms, after being repeatedly informed that the volume was disrupting the delivery of medical services….

Finally, the court rejects Defendant’s argument that section 4584-B is being discriminatorily enforced against only pro-life groups. Each of the other examples of protests and groups referenced by Defendant were mobile or transitory protests which would have generated temporary noise outside the Clinic and which occurred outside of business hours, thereby reasonably not leading to complaints by Planned Parenthood.

No witness offered any testimony regarding any individual or group other than Defendant who made noise that would have interfered with the safe and effective delivery of medical services in the Clinic during business hours. Nor is there evidence that any Portland officer disfavored Defendant’s particular message. Officers consistently informed Defendant that the volume was the only concern and that he was free to preach at that location if he did so at a volume that could not be heard inside the Clinic….

The state asked for a preliminary injunction barring defendant from:

1. intentionally making any noise that can be heard within the building at 443 Congress Street in Portland, Maine, or any other Planned Parenthood facility;
2. engaging in any physical obstruction of 443 Congress Street, Portland, Maine or any other Planned Parenthood facility; and
3. knowingly coming within 500 feet of 443 Congress Street, Portland, Maine or any other Planned Parenthood facility.

But the court issued an injunction limited to item (a):

The court concludes that the order requested by the State is overbroad based on the evidence admitted at hearing, which did not demonstrate that Defendant has either obstructed access to the Clinic or engaged in any conduct violative of section 4684-B at any other Planned Parenthood facility. The court also finds that the 500-foot “buffer” requested by the State is not appropriate. The State failed to prove that Defendant’s mere proximity to the Clinic caused injury; as Lyndsey Stevens testified, Defendant could not be heard within the Clinic unless he used an amplifier. The court finds that the injunction proposed by the State would overburden Defendant’s First Amendment rights.

The court must issue a preliminary injunction tailored to the proven violations of section 4684-B and the significant governmental interest in the effective delivery of medical services. Accordingly, the court enjoins Defendant from using any device to amplify any noise or otherwise making any noise that can be heard within the Clinic. See McCullen v. Coakley (2014) (noting “the First Amendment virtues of targeted injunctions”)….

Seems correct to me, given the analysis from Madsen v. Women’s Health Center (1994):

In response to high noise levels outside the clinic, the state court restrained the petitioners from “singing, chanting, whistling, shouting, yelling, use of bullhorns, auto horns, sound amplification equipment or other sounds or images observable to or within earshot of the patients inside the [c]linic” during the hours of 7:30 a.m. through noon on Mondays through Saturdays. We must, of course, take account of the place to which the regulations apply in determining whether these restrictions burden more speech than necessary. We have upheld similar noise restrictions in the past, and as we noted in upholding a local noise ordinance around public schools, “the nature of a place, ‘the pattern of its normal activities, dictate the kinds of regulations … that are reasonable.'” Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972). Noise control is particularly important around hospitals and medical facilities during surgery and recovery periods, and in evaluating another injunction involving a medical facility, we stated:

“‘Hospitals, after all, are not factories or mines or assembly plants. They are hospitals, where human ailments are treated, where patients and relatives alike often are under emotional strain and worry, where pleasing and comforting patients are principal facets of the day’s activity, and where the patient and his family… need a restful, uncluttered, relaxing, and helpful atmosphere.'” NLRB v. Baptist Hospital, Inc. (1979).

We hold that the limited noise restrictions imposed by the state court order burden no more speech than necessary to ensure the health and well-being of the patients at the clinic. The First Amendment does not demand that patients at a medical facility undertake Herculean efforts to escape the cacophony of political protests. “If overamplified loudspeakers assault the citizenry, government may turn them down.”  That is what the state court did here, and we hold that its action was proper.