712
Opinion of the Court
In 1996, the Supreme Court of Colorado denied review,16
and petitioners sought a writ of certiorari from our Court. While their petition was pending, we decided Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western N. Y., 519 U. S. 357 (1997). Because we held in that case that an injunctive provision creating a speech-free "floating buffer zone" with a 15-foot radius violates the First Amendment, we granted certiorari, vacated the judgment of the Colorado Court of Appeals, and remanded the case to that court for further consideration in light of Schenck. 519 U. S. 1145 (1997).
On remand the Court of Appeals reinstated its judgment upholding the statute. It noted that in Schenck we had "expressly declined to hold that a valid governmental interest in ensuring ingress and egress to a medical clinic may never be sufficient to justify a zone of separation between individuals entering and leaving the premises and protesters" and that our opinion in Ward provided the standard for assessing the validity of a content-neutral, generally applicable statute. Under that standard, even though a 15-foot floating buffer might preclude protesters from expressing their views from a normal conversational distance, a lesser distance of eight feet was sufficient to protect such speech on a public sidewalk.17
The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari and affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. In a thorough opinion, the court began by commenting on certain matters that were not in dispute. It reviewed the history of the statute in detail and concluded that it was intended to protect both the "citizen's 'right to protest' or counsel against certain medical procedures" and also to ensure "that government protects a 'person's right to obtain medical counseling and treatment.' " 18 It noted that both the trial court and the Court of Appeals had concluded that the statute was con-16 App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a.
17 Hill v. Lakewood, 949 P. 2d 107, 109 (1997).
18 973 P. 2d, at 1249 (quoting § 18-9-122(1)).
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