Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/421/809
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:35:41+00:00

Document:
A. The central assumption made by the Supreme Court of Virginia was that the First Amendment guarantee of speech and press are inapplicable to paid commercial advertisements. Our cases, however, clearly establish that speech is not stripped of First Amendment protection merely because it appears in that form. Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm'n, 413 U.S. 376"] 413 U.S. 376, 384 (1973); 413 U.S. 376, 384 (1973); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 266 (1964).
Although other categories of speech -- such as fighting words, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568"] 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942), or obscenity, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942), or obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476"] 354 U.S. 476, 481-485 (1957), 354 U.S. 476, 481-485 (1957), Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15"] 413 U.S. 15, 23 (1973), or libel, 413 U.S. 15, 23 (1973), or libel, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323"] 418 U.S. 323 (1974), or incitement, 418 U.S. 323 (1974), or incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) -- have been held unprotected, no contention has been made that the particular speech embraced in the advertisement in question is within any of these categories.
His brief describes the publication as an "underground newspaper." Brief for Appellant 3. The appellee states that there is no evidence in the record to support that description. Brief for Appellee 3 n. 1.
We were advised by the State at oral argument that the statute dated back to 1878, and that Bigelow's was the first prosecution under the statute "in modern times," and perhaps the only prosecution under it "at any time." Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. The statute appears to have its origin in Va.Acts of Assembly 1877-1878, p. 281, c. 2, § 8.
See Note, The First Amendment and Commercial Advertising: Bigelow v. Commonwealth, 60 Va.L.Rev. 154 (1974).
It was argued, too, that, under the circumstances, the appearance of the advertisement in the appellant's newspaper was "an implicit editorial endorsement" of its message. Brief for Appellant 29.
We have no occasion, therefore, to comment on decisions of lower courts concerning regulation of advertising in readily distinguishable fact situations. Wholly apart from the respective rationales that may have been developed by the courts in those cases, their results are not inconsistent with our holding here. In those cases, there usually existed a clear relationship between the advertising in question and an activity that the government was legitimately regulating. See, e.g., United States v. Bob Lawrence Realty, Inc., 474 F.2d 115, 121 (CA5), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 826 (1973); Rockville Reminder, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 480 F.2d 4 (CA2 1973); United States v. Hunter, 459 F.2d 205 (CA4), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 934 (1972).
See also Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 46-48 (1966); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 554 (1965); Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395, 405 (1953); Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 293-294 (1951); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569, 575-576 (1941).
See State v. Abortion Information Agency, Inc., 69 Misc.2d 825, 323 N.Y.S.2d 597 (1971); see also Mitchell Family Planning, Inc. v. City of Royal Oak, 335 F.Supp. 738 (ED Mich.1972).
See Note, Freedom of Expression in a Commercial Context, 78 Harv.L.Rev. 1191, 1197-1198 (1965); Developments in the Law -- Deceptive Advertising, 80 Harv.L.Rev. 1005, 1010-1015 (1967).
We are not required to decide here what the First Amendment consequences would be if the Virginia advertisement promoted an activity in New York which was then illegal in New York. An example would be an advertisement announcing the availability of narcotics in New York City when the possession and sale of narcotics was proscribed in the State of New York.
The State so indicated at oral argument. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-38. It, however, was never so applied. In the light of its "effective repeal," as the State's counsel observed during the oral argument, "[w]e will never know" how far, under appellee's theory, it might have reached. Id. at 38.
The Court's opinion does not confront head-on the question which this case poses, but makes contact with [p830] it only in a series of verbal sideswipes. The result is the fashioning of a doctrine which appears designed to obtain reversal of this judgment, but at the same time to save harmless from the effects of that doctrine the many prior cases of this Court which are inconsistent with it.
I am in agreement with the Court, ante at 817-818, that Virginia's statute cannot properly be invalidated on grounds of overbreadth, [n1] given that the sole prosecution which has ever been brought under this now substantially altered statute is that now in issue. "It is the law as applied that we review, not the abstract, academic questions which it might raise in some more doubtful case." Saia v. New York, 334 U.S. 558, 571 (1948) (Jackson, J., dissenting).
"Weekly collective has since learned that this abortion agency . . . as well as a number of other commercial groups are charging women a fee for a service which is done free by Women's Liberation, Planned Parenthood, and others."
213 Va.191, 194, 191 S.E.2d 173, 175 (1972). Whatever slight factual content the advertisement may contain, and [p832] whatever expression of opinion may be laboriously drawn from it, does not alter its predominantly commercial content.
If that evasion were successful, every merchant who desires to broadcast . . . need only append a civic appeal, or a moral platitude, to achieve immunity from the law's command.
Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52, 55 (1942). See, e.g., Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 474 n. 17 (1966). I am unable to perceive any relationship between the instant advertisement and that, for example, in issue in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 292 (1964). Nor am I able to distinguish this commercial proposition from that held to be purely commercial in Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm'n, 413 U.S. 376 (1973). As the Court recognizes, ante at 819-821, a purely commercial proposal is entitled to little constitutional protection.
It is clearly within the police power of the state to enact reasonable measures to ensure that pregnant [p833] women in Virginia who decide to have abortions come to their decisions without the commercial advertising pressure usually incidental to the sale of a box of soap powder. And the state is rightfully interested in seeing that Virginia women who do decide to have abortions obtain proper medical care and do not fall into the hands of those interested only in financial gain, and not in the welfare of the patient.
213 Va. at 196, 191 S.E.2d at 176.
Because New York State has the most liberal abortion statute within the Continental United States, thousands of women from all over the country are coming into New York State. . . . [M]ost of these women came here through referral agencies who advertise nationally. These agencies, for a sizeable fee, make all abortion arrangements for a patient. We also learned that certain hospitals give discounts to these lucrative, profit-making organizations. Thus, at the expense of desperate, frightened women, these agencies are making a huge profit -- some, such a huge profit that our Committee members were actually shocked.
may not, under the guise of exercising internal police powers, bar a citizen of another State from disseminating information about an activity that is legal in that State.
Ante at 824-825. And the Court goes so far as to suggest that it is an open question whether a State may constitutionally prohibit an advertisement containing an invitation or offer to engage in activity which is criminal both in the State of publication and in the proposed situs of the crime. See ante at 828 n. 14.
a "no-man's land" . . . in which there would be at best selective policing of the various advertising abuses and excesses which are now very extensively regulated by state law.
Id. at 446. See, e.g., Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 U.S. 105 (1932); Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951).
Were the Court's statements taken literally, they would presage a standard of the lowest common denominator for commercial ethics and business conduct. Securities issuers could circumvent the established blue sky laws of States which had carefully drawn such laws for the protection of their citizens by establishing as a situs for transactions those States without such regulations, while spreading offers throughout the country. Loan sharks might well choose States with unregulated small loan industries, luring the unwary with immune [p836] commercial advertisements. And imagination would place the only limit on the use of such a "no-man's land" together with artificially created territorial contacts to bilk the public and circumvent long-established state schemes of regulation.
Since the Court saves harmless from its present opinion our prior cases in this area, ante at 825 n. 10, it may be fairly inferred that it does not intend the results which might otherwise come from a literal reading of its opinion. But solely on the facts before it, I think the Court today simply errs in assessing Virginia's interest in its statute because it does not focus on the impact of the practices in question on the State. Cf. Young v. Masci, 289 U.S. 253 (1933). Although the commercial referral agency, whose advertisement in Virginia was barred, was physically located outside the State, this physical contact says little about Virginia's concern for the touted practices. Virginia's interest in this statute lies in preventing commercial exploitation of the health needs of its citizens. So long as the statute bans commercial advertising by publications within the State, the extraterritorial location at which the services are actually provided does not diminish that interest.
Since the statute in question is a "reasonable regulation that serves a legitimate public interest," ante at 826, I would affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
1. The Court, ante at 817, states that the Virginia Supreme Court placed no limiting interpretation on its statute and that it implied that the statute might apply to doctors, husbands, and lecturers. The Court is in error: the Virginia Supreme Court stated that it would not interpret the statute to encompass such situations. 213 Va.191, 198, 191 S.E.2d 173, 177 (1972).
Acts done outside a jurisdiction, but intended to produce and producing detrimental effects within it, justify a State in punishing the cause of the harm as if he had been present at the effect. . . .
Mr. Justice McKenna in Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347, 363 (1912), observed that "this must be so if we would fit the laws and their administration to the acts of men and not be led away by mere ‘bookish theorick.'" See, e.g., Skiriotes v. Florida, 313 U.S. 69, 74-75 (1941); Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, 620-621 (1927). To the extent that the Court's conclusion that Virginia has a negligible interest in its statute proceeds from the assumption that the State was without power to regulate the extraterritorial activities of the advertiser involving Virginia residents, it is quite at war with our prior cases.

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