The Ninth Circuit has just ordered en banc rehearing in the First Amendment case of the bikers ejected from the Garlic Festival in Gilroy on the ground that the club jackets they were wearing constituted “gang insignia”  (Villegas v. City of Gilroy, case no. 05-15725 (9th Cir., Sept. 14, 2007)).  I missed covering the original case; it was published on the day I launched this blog and some other cases caught my eye that day instead. 

Decision of the Day was there.  He says that the original panel “blithely affirmed” the dismissal of the bikers’ First Amendment claims because four of them gave four different answers as to what they were trying to express through the design of their jackets.  DotD concludes, “Looks like the en banc Ninth doesn’t think that poor deposition preparation should be the death knell for First Amendment claims.”  See his post on the en banc rehearing for a link to his original coverage.