The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by Donald Goldhamer and Robin Schirmer after charges against the two were dismissed in a Chicago court. Goldhamer, Schirmer and five others were arrested on July 2, 2006 after distributing leaflets near the armed forces recruiting booth at the Taste of Chicago Festival in Grant Park.

The ordinance allows the police to arrest individuals who fail to follow an order to disperse even when engaging in lawful, peaceful First Amendment activities. Goldhamer and Schirmer were arrested after refusing to follow a police order to disperse and cease leafleting. After the dismissal of these charges in state court, Goldhamer and Schirmer filed suit seeking to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional because it violated their First Amendment rights.

The suit charged that the disorderly conduct ordinance was unconstitutional because it gave the police too much discretion to curtail lawful First Amendment activities such as freedom of expression through peaceful leafleting. Judge Grady held that the ordinance was vague precisely because it gave the police too much discretion to curtail lawful protest.

In recent years this ordinance had been used numerous times by the Chicago Police Department to disperse lawful assemblies by arresting people and forcing others to leave under threat of arrest. A 2005 press conference convened by anti-war orgnizers on the 2nd anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq was dispersed by police in this manner and is currently the subject of another suit (Andy Thayer and Brad Lyttle v. City of Chicago, et al).

Copies of both suits and Judge Grady's ruling can be found below.

Goldhamer, Schirmer, Thayer and Lyttle are represented by Charles Nissim-Sabat and Jeffrey Frank from the National Lawyers Guild; Kurt Feuer Attorney at Law; and Elizabeth Wang from the law firm of Loevy & Loevy.