In Hill v. Colorado, decided June 28, 2000, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Colorado could prohibit protesters from knowingly approaching within eight feet of another person on a public sidewalk within 100 feet of a healthcare facility entrance, when the approach was made to hand out literature, display a sign, or engage in oral protest, education, or counseling.1Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000) The decision remains on the books, but later rulings have chipped away at its authority, and a state passing a similar law today would face a much harder fight.
What the Colorado Law Restricts
Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-9-122(3) sets up two layers. The outer layer is a 100-foot radius around any healthcare facility entrance. Inside that radius, a second, mobile rule applies: no one may knowingly move within eight feet of another person, without that person’s consent, to leaflet, hold a sign in front of them, or protest, educate, or counsel by speech.2Colorado Public Law. Colorado Code 18-9-122 – Preventing Passage to and From a Health-Care Facility
Nothing in the statute bans speech itself. A protester can stand on the sidewalk, hold a sign, shout, and offer literature to anyone who walks up. The trigger is the knowing approach toward an unwilling listener. Because the restriction moves with each pedestrian rather than drawing a fixed line, it’s called a floating buffer zone.
A violation is a petty offense under Colorado law, punishable by up to a $300 fine and ten days in county jail, with separate exposure to civil liability.3Justia Law. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-1.3-503
The Majority’s Reasoning
Justice Stevens wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. The Court treated the statute as a “time, place, and manner” restriction and applied the framework from Ward v. Rock Against Racism. Under that framework, a regulation of speech in a public forum survives if it is content-neutral, narrowly tailored to a significant government interest, and leaves open ample alternative channels of communication.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989)
The most contested piece was content-neutrality. The challengers argued that a law restricting “oral protest, education, or counseling” is content-based on its face, because an officer has to listen to what a person is saying to know whether the statute applies. Someone approaching within eight feet to ask directions is fine; someone approaching to hand over a pamphlet is not. The majority disagreed, holding that the law was “justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech,” applied equally to every viewpoint, and regulated where and how closely speech occurred rather than what was said.1Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000)
Because the law was content-neutral, it drew intermediate scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny. The Court found Colorado had a significant interest in protecting access to healthcare and shielding patients from close-range confrontation, that eight feet was a modest distance, and that speakers could still hold signs, distribute materials, and speak at a normal conversational volume from just outside the zone.
Stevens also invoked what he called “the right to be let alone,” a phrase borrowed from Justice Brandeis. The idea rests on the captive audience doctrine: people walking into a healthcare facility are not easily able to avoid a protester who closes the gap, and the eight-foot cushion gives the listener a practical escape route without silencing the speaker.
The Dissent
Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas dissented. Scalia’s opinion argued that the statute was content-based on its face, because only approaches made to protest, educate, or counsel triggered it. Someone could walk up within eight feet to sell a product or ask the time, but not to hand over a leaflet. When the law’s application depends on the reason for speaking, Scalia wrote, it is regulating content, and strict scrutiny should apply.
Kennedy focused on the practical effect. He argued that the eight-foot rule prevented the quiet, personal, one-on-one exchanges the First Amendment was designed to protect, and that the majority had created a template governments could use to silence unpopular speakers in public forums whenever listeners preferred quiet.
All three dissenters raised the same worry about precedent. If the state can draw a floating no-approach zone around every person near a clinic, the same logic could be extended outside courthouses, government offices, or political conventions.
How Later Cases Have Narrowed Hill
Hill’s authority didn’t hold up well. In 2014, the Supreme Court decided McCullen v. Coakley, striking down a Massachusetts law that created 35-foot fixed buffer zones around reproductive healthcare facility entrances. The Court was unanimous in the result. Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion held that even though the Massachusetts law was content-neutral, it burdened “substantially more speech than is necessary” because the state hadn’t tried less restrictive alternatives first, such as enforcing existing obstruction laws, using targeted injunctions against repeat offenders, or adopting the federal FACE Act’s approach.5Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014)
McCullen didn’t formally overrule Hill, but its narrower-tailoring analysis undercut Hill’s reasoning. Scalia’s concurrence in McCullen said Hill should be overruled outright. And in the 2022 Dobbs decision, Justice Alito’s majority opinion described Hill as having “distorted” First Amendment doctrine, without going the further step of overruling it.
The current status: Hill is still binding precedent, and Colorado’s statute has never been struck down. But any new law modeled on it would have to survive the tighter tailoring standard McCullen imposed, which requires the government to show it seriously considered less restrictive alternatives before drawing a buffer zone.
What This Means on the Ground
For anyone protesting or counseling near a Colorado healthcare facility, the practical line hasn’t moved since 2000. Standing in one spot on a public sidewalk and offering literature to passersby is protected, even within 100 feet of an entrance. What violates the statute is knowingly moving toward a person who has not consented, to close the gap under eight feet, for the purpose of leafleting, sign-holding, or oral protest, education, or counseling. Someone who stays put while pedestrians walk near them has not “approached” anyone.
For clinics and patients, the statute is a tool but not a heavy one. A petty offense carrying up to a $300 fine is a deterrent, not a serious criminal sanction. When conduct escalates beyond close-range speech into actual obstruction, force, or threats of force, the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act reaches further and hits harder. The FACE Act makes it a federal crime to use force, threats of force, or physical obstruction to interfere with someone obtaining or providing reproductive health services, and it allows both criminal penalties and private civil suits for damages and injunctive relief.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 248 – Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances The McCullen Court specifically pointed to the FACE Act as the kind of narrower, conduct-focused tool a state could rely on instead of a blanket buffer zone.
The tensions Hill exposed, between the right to speak and the right to be let alone, and between protest rights and patient access, have only sharpened since Dobbs shifted abortion regulation back to the states. Hill remains the only Supreme Court decision to directly uphold a floating buffer zone around individuals near healthcare facilities. Whether it survives the next case that squarely asks the Court to revisit it is an open question.