Ridley, et al. v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, et al., US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Judge Sandra L. Lynch, November 29, 2004 [ruling that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority violated the free speech rights of a group promoting the legalization of marijuana by refusing to accept advertisements by the group]. Excerpt:

In this opinion covering both cases, we address the parties' arguments about what type of "forum" the MBTA advertising program constitutes. We hold first that the MBTA did not create a public forum. Second, we address whether the MBTA's pertinent guidelines and its decisions to reject both parties' advertising are unlawful as a form of viewpoint discrimination or as an unreasonable use of the forum. We hold that the guidelines on their face are viewpoint neutral and reasonable, and that the decision to reject the Ridley ad was neither viewpoint discriminatory nor unreasonable. However, we hold that the rejection of the three Change the Climate ads constituted viewpoint discrimination and was unreasonable. Finally, we consider the challenge that the guidelines at issue in both cases are vague and delegate too much discretion to the MBTA's employees. We hold that the pertinent guidelines are not facially unconstitutional.

Read the full text of the opinion here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.