A year and a half after Matthew T. Mglej stripped naked outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, he returned to the scene and accused Portland police of violating his right to free expression for arresting him.
This time, Mglej, 26, wore a suit jacket and pants and was accompanied by a service dog named Bella as he argued in a federal courtroom that police quashed his First Amendment rights when they charged him with indecent exposure and interfering with an officer.
On May 23, 2014, Mglej removed his clothes and lay them in front of the courthouse by the Thomas Jefferson quote, "The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave'' that graces the side of the building.
He stood and played violin in front of the courthouse, then sat down on the ground amid posters he made. After several warnings, police arrested Mglej and he was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center.
He was charged with violating a city ordinance that forbids people from exposing their genitalia in public and in the presence of the opposite sex.
State prosecutors last spring dismissed Mglej's charges.
In federal court Friday, Mglej alleged that he had a right to protest in the nude. He cited the 2012 case of a man who disrobed at the Portland International Airport, fed up with what he saw as the invasive body scans and pat downs by the Transportation Security Administration.
Deputy City Attorney William Manlove countered that Mglej's claim lacked any merit and should be thrown out. He argued that Mglej's nudity didn't in any way further his message. The posters that he had with him were confusing and Mglej refused to tell police what he was protesting, Manlove said.
"The passersby didn't know what the nudity was about. Police didn't' know,'' Manlove said. "He could have continued his actions if he had simply covered up his nudity.''
Mglej told the court that he was attempting to show that transparency is needed within government and his dressing down was a symbolic form of expression.
On one poster he made that day, Mglej quoted from former Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad and wrote about the need for compassion and justice in the world and not war and intimidation.
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman said he reviewed Mglej's protest and arrest, which were caught on video.
For Mglej's nudity to have been protected under the First Amendment, it would have had to advance his message in some way, the judge said.
Mosman found Mglej's nudity didn't meet that threshold and therefore wasn't protected by either the First Amendment or the state constitution.
"I don't think an objective observer would have known why the plaintiff was nude that day,'' Mosman said. "I think in fact his posters clouded his message and made it more difficult.''
Mosman threw out all of Mglej's allegations against the city and Portland police, but said he will allow one allegation of excessive force against Multnomah County regarding his treatment in jail to proceed to trial.
Mglej alleged that he was placed in an isolation cell though he wasn't suicidal and that deputies injured his wrists when trying to remove his handcuffs.
County attorneys argue that Mglej refused to follow directions or answer deputies' questions once in jail. They placed him in a cell and deputies used a tether to remove Mglej's cuffs through a food port in the cell.
Mglej didn't complain of any injuries at the time, according to Assistant County Attorney B. Andrew Jones.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian