In Hamann v. City of Carbondale, Illinois, (SD IL, Jan. 21, 2026), an Illinois federal district court refused to preliminarily enjoin the city of Carbondale's sign ordinance. The Ordinance prohibits plaintiff, a Christian minister, from temporarily placing his anti-abortion signs in the ground on public property near an abortion clinic while he is attempting to persuade women not to have an abortion. Under the Ordinance, he can carry or wear the signs but cannot place them into the ground. The court rejected plaintiff's claims that the Ordinance is unconstitutionally vague and violates his free speech rights. It concluded that the Ordinance is a permissible time, place and manner regulation of speech in a public forum. The court went on in part:
Hamman’s final argument advances a theory of viewpoint discrimination based on the City’s “policy of inaction” towards signs that share messages other than his.... He submitted photos of three temporary signs he found throughout Carbondale which, he believes, were placed in the public right of way and not removed the way his were. From there, he contends that the City engaged in a “targeted campaign of enforcement” against his signs based on their anti-abortion messages....
Hamman acknowledges that he does not know how long these signs had been in the public right of way when he photographed them. This, then, leaves open the possibility that the City had not had time to remove them—something that, Lenzini explained, can happen from time to time. Surely, if these signs had been placed in the public right of way with the City’s permission, or been left there after the City became aware of them, such evidence would support Hamman’s claim of selective enforcement. But the record reveals no such evidence....
