The Right to Associate With Hells Angels

The United States Supreme Court has stated that all Americans have a "right to associate for the purposes of engaging in those activities protected by the First Amendment: speech, assembly, petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of religion. The Constitution guarantees freedom of association of this kind as an indispensable means of preserving other individual liberties." Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 618, 82 L. Ed. 2d 462, 104 S. Ct. 3244 (1984). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has recognized an individual's First Amendment right to associate with the Hell's Angels. United States v. Rubio, 727 F.2d 786, 791 (9th Cir. 1983). "Infringements on that right may be justified by regulations adopted to serve compelling state interests, unrelated to the suppression of ideas, that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms." Roberts, 468 U.S. at 623.