Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 373.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

298

ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Opinion of O’Connor, J.

ments in Erie, and can make particularized, expert judg-
ments about the resulting harmful secondary effects. Anal-
ogizing to the administrative agency context,
it is well
established that, as long as a party has an opportunity to
respond, an administrative agency may take ofﬁcial notice of
such “legislative facts” within its special knowledge, and is
not conﬁned to the evidence in the record in reaching its
expert judgment. See FCC v. National Citizens Comm.
for Broadcasting, 436 U. S. 775 (1978); Republic Aviation
Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793 (1945); 2 K. Davis & R. Pierce,
Administrative Law Treatise § 10.6 (3d ed. 1994). Here,
Kandyland has had ample opportunity to contest the council’s
ﬁndings about secondary effects—before the council itself,
throughout the state proceedings, and before this Court.
Yet to this day, Kandyland has never challenged the city
council’s ﬁndings or cast any speciﬁc doubt on the validity
Instead, it has simply asserted that the
of those ﬁndings.
council’s evidentiary proof was lacking.
In the absence of
any reason to doubt it, the city’s expert judgment should be
credited. And the study relied on by amicus curiae does
not cast any legitimate doubt on the Erie city council’s judg-
ment about Erie. See Brief for First Amendment Lawyers
Association as Amicus Curiae 16–23.

Finally, it is worth repeating that Erie’s ordinance is on
its face a content-neutral restriction that regulates conduct,
not First Amendment expression. And the government
should have sufﬁcient leeway to justify such a law based on
secondary effects. On this point, O’Brien is especially in-
structive. The Court there did not require evidence that
the integrity of the Selective Service System would be jeop-
ardized by the knowing destruction or mutilation of draft
It simply reviewed the Government’s various admin-
cards.
istrative interests in issuing the cards, and then concluded
that “Congress has a legitimate and substantial interest in
preventing their wanton and unrestrained destruction and
assuring their continuing availability by punishing people