_____________

No. 95-2722WA

_____________

Ralph P. Forbes, and *

The People, *

*

Appellant, *

*

v. *

*

*

The Arkansas Educational *

Television Commission, and its *

Board of Directors in their *

Official Capacities; The *

Arkansas Educational *

Telecommunications Network *

Foundation, and its Members and *

Officers Susan J. Howarth, in * On Appeal from the United

her Official Capacity as * States District Court

Executive Director; Victor * for the Western District

Fleming, in his Official * of Arkansas.

Capacity as Chairman; G. E. *

Campbell, in his Official *

Capacity as Vice-Chairman; *

Dr. Caroline Whitson, in her *

Official Capacity as Secretary; *

Diane Blair, in her Official *

Capacity as Commissioner; *

S. McAdams, in his Official *

Capacity as Commissioner; *

James Ross, in his Official *

Capacity as Commissioner; *

Jerry McIntosh, in his Official *

Capacity as Commissioner; *

Lillian Springer, in her *

Official Capacity as *

Commissioner; Amy L. Oliver, in *

her Official Capacity as *

Production Manager; Bill *

Clinton, his Official Capacity *

as Governor of the State of *

Arkansas; John Does, Sued as *

certain "John Doe" crooked, *

lying politicians and *
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political "dirty tricks" *

operatives and special *

interests, etc.; KHBS *

TV/Channel 40 UHF; KHOG *

TV/Channel 29 UHF; American *

Broadcasting Company, Agent *

Darrel Cunningham; *

Steve Barnes, KARK TV, *

4 Eye-Witness News and AETN *

Producer; Oscar Eugene Goss, *

Arkansas Educational Television *

Network; Carol Adornetto; *

Larry Foley; Lavenia Craig, *

in her Official Capacity as *

Commissioner; Robert Doubleday, *

in his Official Capacity as *

Commissioner, *

* Appellees. *

___________

 Submitted: April 11, 1996

 Filed: August 21, 1996 ___________

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, McMILLIAN and JOHN R.

GIBSON, Circuit Judges.___________

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge.

This case is before us for the second time. On the prior

appeal, this Court, sitting en banc, held that the plaintiff, Ralph

P. Forbes, had stated a claim. Forbes v. Arkansas Educational

Television Network, 22 F.3d 1423 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert.

denied, 115 S. Ct. 500 (1994) (petition of AETN), 115 S. Ct. 1962

(1995) (petition of Mr. Forbes). The case arises out of a debate

staged by the defendant Arkansas Educational Television Commission,

an agency of the State of Arkansas, between the Democratic and

Republican candidates for Congress in the Third District of

Arkansas in 1992. Mr. Forbes, who was also a legally qualified

candidate in that race, asked to be included in the debate but was
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refused. He claimed, among other things, that his exclusion

violated the First Amendment, as made applicable to the states

through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We

held that the First Amendment applied fully to the Arkansas

Educational Television Network (AETN), and that the defendants were

not free to exclude Mr. Forbes without a reason good enough to pass

muster under that Amendment. The case had not progressed far

enough for defendants to file an answer. Hence, there was no way

of knowing, on the state of the record as it then existed, why AETN

had excluded Mr. Forbes. The case was remanded for further

proceedings. 

On remand, the plaintiff's First Amendment claim was tried to

a jury. By special verdicts, the jury found that the decision to

exclude the plaintiff from the debate was not the result of

political pressure, and that it was not based on opposition towards

plaintiff's political opinions. In addition, the District Court

instructed the jury that the congressional debate, as set up by the

defendant network, was a non-public forum. Judgment was entered

for defendants.

Mr. Forbes now appeals. He argues that the debate was a

limited public forum, and that the reason given for excluding him,

that he was not a "viable" candidate, even if it was the true

reason, was not legally sufficient. We agree. We hold that a

governmentally owned and controlled television station may not

exclude a candidate, legally qualified under state law, from a

debate organized by it on such a subjective ground. To uphold such

a defense would, in our view, place too much faith in government.
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I.

We briefly restate enough of the facts and proceedings below

to place the present issue in context. In October 1992, the

Arkansas Educational Television Commission decided to conduct and

broadcast a debate between the Republican and Democratic candidates

for Congress in the Third District of Arkansas. The plaintiff,

Ralph P. Forbes, then became a duly qualified independent candidate

under state law. He was certified as an independent candidate

because he had gathered enough signatures on petitions. Under

state law, a candidate must file petitions signed by at least three

per cent. of the qualified electors in the district in which he is

seeking office, provided, however, that no more than 2,000

signatures are required. Ark. Code Ann. § 7-7-103(c)(1). Mr.

Forbes heard about the debate and asked to be included. AETN

refused, and the debate took place on October 22, 1992, without Mr.

Forbes's participation. In the meantime, the plaintiff had filed

suit in the District Court, seeking a preliminary injunction, but

this relief was denied. Thereafter, the District Court granted

AETN's motion to dismiss the complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. 

The plaintiff appealed, and this Court, sitting en banc,

affirmed in part and reversed in part. We rejected Mr. Forbes's

claim under the Federal Communications Act, holding that § 315 of

that Act, 47 U.S.C. § 315, does not create a private cause of

action. As to the First Amendment claim, however, we held that

Forbes's pleading was sufficient to survive a motion under Rule

12(b)(6). The defendants argued that the case should be governed

by public-forum analysis. In response to this position, we held

that governmentally owned television stations are not traditional

public fora, but that they might, under the particular

circumstances of any given case, create a limited public forum, "a

place that generally is not open for public expression, but that
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the government has opened for use for free speech for only a

limited period of time, a limited topic, or a limited class of

speakers." Forbes, 22 F.3d at 1429 (citations omitted). We added:

Since the key determination of whether a forum

is a limited public one is the government's

acquiescence in its use for expressive

purposes, it is certainly possible that AETN

created a limited public forum when it chose

to sponsor a debate among the candidates for

the Third Congressional seat. This is a

determination the factfinder would have to

make after carefully looking at the nature of

the debate forum. If it were determined that

AETN had created a limited public forum, then

Forbes would have a First Amendment right to

participate in the debate and could be

excluded only if AETN had a sufficient

government interest.

Ibid. Observing that "AETN . . . has not yet articulated any

principled reason for excluding Forbes," id. at 1430, we remanded

for further proceedings. 

On remand, as we have previously noted, the District Court

tried the case to a jury. In accordance with our en banc opinion,

the Court correctly refused to submit to the jury any claim under

the Communications Act itself. Only the First Amendment claim was

submitted. But before the case went to the jury, the District

Court held, as a matter of law, that the debate in question was a

non-public forum. The District Court said: ". . . the Court has

ruled that the type of forum we are talking about in this case is

a non-public forum." Thus, the question whether the debate was a

non-public forum or a limited public forum was not submitted to the

factfinder. It was taken from the jury and decided by the Court.

The issue whether defendants' proffered justification -- that

Forbes was not a viable candidate -- would be legally sufficient if

the debate were a limited public forum was not reached. Instead,
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the District Court submitted to the jury only those discrete issues

of fact that it deemed relevant under its holding that the debate

was a non-public forum. 

On special verdicts, the jury found, first, that the decision

to exclude Mr. Forbes was not the result of any political pressure

coming from outside the professional staff of AETN. (Under the

theory presented by defendants at the trial, this would have been

the only basis for a recovery by the plaintiff.) The jury found,

in addition, that the defendants did not exclude Mr. Forbes from

the debate because of disagreement with his opinions. In

accordance with these findings of fact and the Court's holding on

the public-forum issue, judgment was then entered for defendants.

II.

We first discuss three procedural arguments made by Mr. Forbes

as part of his attempt to upset the judgment of the District Court.

The first argument has to do with the special interrogatories put

to the jury. The first of these interrogatories read as follows:

 Do you find from a preponderance of the

evidence that the defendants' decision to

exclude Mr. Forbes from the debate was

influenced in any way by political pressure

from anyone inside or outside of the Arkansas

Educational Television Network? 

Trial transcript (Tr.) 475. The jury answered no to this question.

Id. at 502. Mr. Forbes's argument is that this interrogatory was

unnecessary to a finding that AETN violated his First Amendment

rights, and that submitting it to the jury was confusing. We do

not agree that use of the interrogatory was reversible error. 

Whether to submit a case on special interrogatories, and, if
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so, how to phrase them, are matters committed, within broad limits,

to the discretion of the district courts. We have no reason to

believe that this jury was confused. We have great faith in

juries, and their desire and ability to follow instructions and

make distinctions among the various issues put before them. It may

be true that submission of this special interrogatory, strictly

speaking, was unnecessary. The First Amendment can be violated

even if no political pressure is exerted. For example, officials

of AETN, entirely apart from political pressure, might have decided

to exclude Mr. Forbes because of disagreement with his political

opinions. (As we have seen, the jury found that this did not

occur, but, at the time the case was submitted to the jury, this

was still a live issue.) It is very likely that the exertion of

political pressure, if it had occurred, would have been a good

theory of First Amendment violation, because such pressure, in all

probability, would have proceeded out of someone's disagreement

with or prejudice against Mr. Forbes's political positions. The

jury's negative answer to the interrogatory did not mean that the

case was over; it meant only that one possible theory of liability

had been rejected. The jury remained free to consider the other

interrogatories submitted to it, and we believe it did so

conscientiously.

The jury then went on to answer the second interrogatory,

asking whether the decision to exclude Mr. Forbes was based on

disagreement with his political viewpoint. The answer to this

question was no. We do not know what our answer would have been if

we had been sitting on the jury, but that is not important. There

was conflicting evidence on this issue, and it could have gone

either way. Making decisions of this kind is exactly what juries

are for. It was within the discretion of the District Court to

submit the issue to the jury in this form, and the evidence is

sufficient to support its negative answer. 

Mr. Forbes also argues that it was prejudicial error to
 1

Mr. Forbes also argues that the District Court erred in

refusing to submit the issue of punitive damages to the jury. We

believe the District Court acted correctly in this regard. There

was no substantial evidence of malice or other outrageous conduct

on the part of these defendants. Therefore, there would have been

no basis for an award of punitive damages, and such an award, if

returned by the jury, would have to be set aside for lack of

sufficient evidence. 

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exclude evidence which, he contends, would have shown that the

husband of the producer of the debate for AETN was prejudiced

against him. We cannot agree that any error was committed in this

regard. If we assume that the husband did not like Mr. Forbes's

opinions, and if we further assume, and this would be something of

a stretch on the present record, that his wife knew this, it by no

means follows that the wife was in agreement. Spouses' political

opinions sometimes agree. They sometimes disagree. We do not

think any general inference can be drawn from the opinion of one

spouse to that of the other. The District Court did not abuse its

discretion in rejecting this evidence.1 

III.

It remains to discuss what has emerged as the main issue --

whether the congressional debate staged by AETN was a limitedpurpose public forum, or a non-public forum, and, if it was the

former, whether AETN's reason for excluding Mr. Forbes can survive

scrutiny under the First Amendment. (We agree with the District

Court that the jury's finding that the exclusion was not viewpointbased is fatal to Mr. Forbes's case if the debate was a non-public

forum.) That this is the major issue in the case became clear at

oral argument. Counsel for defendants, citing Bose Corp. v.

Consumer's Union, 466 U.S. 485 (1984), argued that the issue of how

to characterize the forum was properly decided by the judge.

Certain First Amendment issues, he asserted, are for the Court, not

the jury, and are then subject to de novo review on appeal. 
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We are not sure that Bose holds that all First Amendment

issues of fact are to be decided by the court instead of the jury

in cases otherwise triable to a jury under the Seventh Amendment.

This is an action at law for damages, a timely demand for jury

trial was made, and a jury was properly empaneled. Certain issues

of historical fact -- for example, whether Forbes was excluded from

the debate because of hostility to his opinions -- are certainly

for the jury, assuming that the evidence was in sufficient conflict

to allow reasonable jurors to go either way. Thus, the issues

covered by the special interrogatories put to the jury in this case

were correctly treated as jury issues, and we do not understand

defendants to argue otherwise. 

By contrast, the question of what exactly the forum was in

this case, whether it was a non-public forum or a limited public

forum, is a different sort of issue. It is a mixed question of law

and fact, as to which the answer is obtained by applying legal

principles to facts. We do not understand the historical facts --

for example, who set up the debate, who was invited to attend, who

was excluded, and the like -- to be in dispute. If defendants, by

citing Bose, are asserting that such issues are never to be

submitted to juries, we are not convinced. Bose has to do with the

reviewing or appellate function in First Amendment cases. It does

not, at least not in so many words, address the division of

functions between judge and jury at the trial level. 

In the present case, this distinction, between the division of

functions at the trial level and the standard of review at the

appellate level, seems to us of no practical significance. Suppose

the district court had allowed the issue of how to characterize the

forum to go to the jury, and suppose the jury had decided it one

way or the other. The party losing this issue would surely have

filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, now called

a motion for judgment as a matter of law, and the district court

would have ruled on the motion. In doing so, the district court
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would have gone through the same mental process engaged in by

appellate courts. It would have been exercising essentially a

reviewing function. And this Court, in turn, would have been bound

to apply the Bose approach on appeal. 

The Supreme Court's opinion in Bose holds that appellate

courts must "conduct an independent review of the evidence on . . .

dispositive constitutional issue[s]" in First Amendment cases. 466

U.S. at 508. Bose was a bench-tried case, but the opinion clearly

indicates that the same appellate standard applies in cases tried

to juries: 

. . . The rule of independent review assigns

to judges a constitutional responsibility that

cannot be delegated to the trier of fact,

whether the factfinding function be performed

in the particular case by a jury or by a trial

judge. 

Id. at 501. In short, "First Amendment questions of

'constitutional fact' compel this Court's de novo review." Id. at

508-09 n.27. Our recent opinion in Families Achieving Independence

and Respect v. Nebraska Department of Social Services, _____ F.3d

_____, _____, 1996 WL 426147 *3 (8th Cir., July 31, 1996), reaches

the same conclusion: "[W]here . . . constitutional issues [in

First Amendment cases] present mixed questions of law and fact, our

review is de novo." 

We have a complete record before us on the public-forum

question, and we have the holding of the District Court on that

issue. We now proceed to exercise our constitutional duty to

conduct an independent review. 

As an initial matter, we must determine whether the forum at

issue is the television station, AETN, or the Third District

congressional debate. At oral argument and throughout its brief,
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AETN contends that the station is the relevant forum. Forbes, on

the other hand, contends that our analysis should focus on the

debate.

The choice between the two forums suggested is not a difficult

one. "In defining the forum we [] focus[] on the access sought by

the speaker." Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, 473 U.S.

788, 801 (1985). If the speaker seeks general access to public

property, the forum encompasses that property. But if only limited

access is sought, we must take a "more tailored approach to

ascertain[] the perimeters of a forum within the confines of the

government property." Ibid. 

Forbes sought access to the debate alone. The debate is a

particular program among the numerous programs broadcast by AETN

each day. Traditionally, when a speaker "seek[s] access to a

particular means of communication," it is that particularized forum

which becomes the focus of analysis. Ibid. In keeping with that

tradition, we conclude that the debate - the means of communication

to which Forbes seeks access - is the relevant forum in this case.

Having identified the forum, we now turn to the more difficult

question of determining its character. Forbes maintains that by

staging the debate, AETN created a limited public forum. This type

of forum has been defined as a forum "created by government

designation of a place or channel of communication for use by the

public at large for assembly and speech, for use by certain

speakers, or for the discussion of certain subjects." Id. at 802.

The Supreme Court has recognized the existence of a limited public

forum in a number of instances where the State "does not itself

speak or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead

. . . encourage[s] a diversity of views from private speakers."

Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 115 S. Ct. 2510,

2519 (1995). Examples of limited public forums include university

meeting facilities opened for use by registered student groups,
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Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981), and municipal theaters

open to theater productions, Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v.

Conrad, 420 U.S. 546 (1975). See also Lehman v. City of Shaker

Heights, 418 U.S. 298 (1974) (advertising space on public bus held

to be a limited public forum for commercial advertising); Healy v.

James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972) (public college's recognition of student

political groups created a limited public forum). 

A non-public forum, by contrast, is "[p]ublic property which

is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication

. . .." Perry Educ. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460

U.S. 37, 46 (1983). A non-public forum is not necessarily

transformed into a public or limited public forum even though the

State engages in a practice of "selective access," by "allow[ing]

some organizations . . . to use the facilities." Id. at 47.

Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 115 S. Ct. 2440,

2446 (1995) (forum is nonpublic when "reserved for specific

official uses"). In Perry, the Supreme Court held that a public

school's internal mail system was a non-public forum even though

officials had allowed some community organizations to use the

system. Perry, 460 U.S. at 47 (finding no evidence that "permission

ha[d] been granted as a matter of course to all," the Court

concluded that "selective access does not transform government

property into a public forum."). Similarly, in Cornelius, the

Supreme Court held that the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), an

annual charitable-fundraising drive administered by the Office of

Personnel Management, was a non-public forum. As it did in Perry,

the Court reasoned that "selective access [to charities],

unsupported by evidence of a purposeful designation for public use,

[did] not create a public forum." Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 805.

There is no bright line or objective test for determining the

character of the forum. We can say without reservation, however,

that the forum in this case, the debate, is a limited public forum.

Just as the university in Widmar created a limited public forum by
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opening its facilities to registered student groups for expressive

speech, AETN, by staging the debate, opened its facilities to a

particular group -- candidates running for the Third District

Congressional seat. The debate may be readily distinguished from

the forums at issue in Cornelius and Perry. In Cornelius, it was

clear that the CFC was not created "for purposes of providing a

forum for expressive activity." Ibid. The expression made by

giving money to charity was merely incidental to the purpose for

which the forum was opened -- "to minimize the disruption to the

workplace that had resulted from unlimited ad hoc solicitation

activities by lessening the amount of expressive activity occurring

on federal property." Ibid. Likewise, the forum in Perry, the

school's internal mail system, was designed solely for expression

relating to school business. Access to the system was granted to

groups on an individual basis and was not "granted as a matter of

course" to any particular group. The debate staged by AETN, on the

other hand, was staged in order for the candidates to express their

views on campaign issues. 

The debate was surely a place opened by the government for a

limited class of speakers. What was that class? Was it all

candidates for Congress legally qualified to appear on the ballot,

or was it simply the Republican and Democratic candidates? The

latter answer, which essentially is the position espoused by

defendants, is not supportable either as a matter of law or logic.

Surely government cannot, simply by its own ipse dixit, define a

class of speakers so as to exclude a person who would naturally be

expected to be a member of the class on no basis other than party

affiliation. It must be emphasized that we are dealing here with

political speech by legally qualified candidates, a subject matter

at the very core of the First Amendment, and that exclusion of one

such speaker has the effect of a prior restraint - it keeps his

views from the public on the occasion in question.

The real issue, we think, is the legal sufficiency of the
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reason given for the exclusion. If AETN had considered Mr. Forbes

a viable candidate, it would, by its own account, have included him

in the debate. There is nothing about being a Democrat or a

Republican, a priori, that is relevant here. Rather, AETN's point

is that Mr. Forbes, in the opinion of the network, had no chance to

win. It therefore decided that its viewers should not hear Mr.

Forbes's opinions as part of the debate involving the other

candidates qualified to appear on the ballot. 

We do not think that AETN's opinion on such a debatable matter

as the political viability of a candidate for Congress more than

two months in advance of the election can be a sufficient basis for

narrowing the channels of public discourse. AETN itself

characterizes the criteria it used as follows: "While these

criteria can to some extent be considered as objective, ultimately

their use is essentially subjective." Brief for Appellees 30. In

a sense, the State of Arkansas had already, by statute, defined

political viability. Mr. Forbes had gathered enough signatures to

appear on the ballot. So far as the law was concerned, he had

equal status with the Republican nominee and the Democratic

nominee. Whether he was viable was, ultimately, a judgment to be

made by the people of the Third Congressional District, not by

officials of the government in charge of channels of communication.

We have no doubt that the decision as to political viability

is exactly the kind of journalistic judgment routinely made by

newspeople. We also believe that the judgment in this case was

made in good faith. But a crucial fact here is that the people

making this judgment were not ordinary journalists: they were

employees of government. The First Amendment exists to protect

individuals, not government. The question of political viability

is, indeed, so subjective, so arguable, so susceptible of variation

in individual opinion, as to provide no secure basis for the

exercise of governmental power consistent with the First Amendment.

Compare Families Achieving Independence and Respect v. Nebraska
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Department of Social Services, supra, _____ F.3d at _____, 1996 WL

426147 *3-4 (vague standard cannot justify exclusion even from a

non-public forum). If Mr. Forbes can be excluded today, a

Republican or a Democrat who is believed to have no chance of

success could be excluded tomorrow. It is worth noting that Mr.

Forbes himself received the most votes in the preferential primary

for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor in 1990. (He

was defeated in a run-off primary.) To give just one more example,

in 1958, in the Second Congressional District, a write-in candidate

who equipped his supporters with stickers that could readily be

applied to the ballot defeated the incumbent Democratic Member of

Congress, despite the fact that he began his campaign very shortly

before the election. Political viability is a tricky concept. We

should leave it to the voters at the polls, and to the professional

judgment of nongovernmental journalists. A journalist employed by

the government is still a government employee. 

In short, we hold that the reason given for excluding Mr.

Forbes (and we accept at face value defendants' proffered reason)

was not legally sufficient under the First Amendment. It was

neither compelling nor narrowly tailored. Mr. Forbes is entitled

to a judgment in his favor so declaring. The only issue remaining

to be decided is that of damages, whether nominal or compensatory.

The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the cause

remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The

District Court is instructed to enter judgment for the plaintiff

Forbes and against the defendant Arkansas Educational Television

Commission, and, thereafter, to empanel a jury for the sole purpose

of determining the amount of actual damages sustained. 

It is so ordered.
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A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U. S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.