© Reuters/Eduardo Munoz Bill Talen, known as Reverend Billy (C), delivers a speech to members of the Occupy Wall Street movement as they return to Zuccotti Park in New York November 15, 2011.
Protesters who had been kicked out in a surprise predawn raid were allowed back 16 hours later but were banned from bringing the tents and sleeping bags that had turned a square-block park near Wall Street into an urban campground the past two months.
New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman found the city was justified in enforcing a ban on sleeping in Zuccotti Park, saying the new rules still protected protesters' free-speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The judge ruled merely that the case lacked the urgency to approve or strike down the new park rules immediately. The underlying case will be heard at a later date.
After the judge's ruling, police lifted barricades at two points, letting people back in one by one. Several hundred protesters were in the park under a light drizzle, and the crowd thinned as the night wore on. The mood was largely free of tension.
