The Georgia Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether two University students have legal standing to challenge Athens-Clarke County’s noise ordinance.

Students William Hoffman and Robert Manlove, along with the Law Office of Charles A. Jones Jr., filed a constitutional lawsuit against the government in January 2008 challenging the county’s ordinance as “unnecessarily restrictive and therefore a violation of … free speech,” according to court documents.

The case went to trial in July 2008. During the trial, Amy Gellins, assistant county attorney, said the case should be dismissed because Manlove and Hoffman weren’t facing potential prosecution under the ordinance and therefore had no standing to bring suit, according to a July 2008 article in The Red & Black.

The plaintiff’s attorney said the ordinance inhibits free speech under the threat of prosecution because county police may cite violations upon first occurrences.

He also said the ordinance inhibits speech and noise that may be appropriate in areas such as downtown.

ACC Superior Court Judge David Sweat dismissed the case in July 2008 on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue the government. The plaintiff’s attorney, Charles Jones, filed an appeal three days after Sweat’s decision.

“The local judge said [the students] do not have standing because they only wanted to play music, which did not carry a specific message,” Jones said in a telephone interview Monday.

If the Georgia Supreme Court agrees with the lower court’s decision, the case will be dropped. If tomorrow’s deliberations justify the students’ standing to bring suit, however, the case will return to the trial court.

In a telephone interview Monday, ACC attorney William Berryman said if the case returns to the trial court, “We have several defenses that we still think would uphold the ordinance.”

But, he said, “I feel like we had a good result from the trial court and we certainly hope that will be the case after this one.”

Jones said he has been preparing for Tuesday’s hearing by researching previous cases and preparing his written arguments.

“You can never have any guarantees but I’m very confident at this point,” Jones said. “The more research I do convinces me more and more that our position will be victorious. The justices of the Georgia Supreme Court are some of the best in the nation for protecting free speech rights.”