Opinion ID: 797443
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Principles of Forum Analysis

Text: 9 According to Summum, because the City has permitted a private party to erect a monument in a public forum, but denied Summum's request to do the same, it has violated Summum's free speech rights. In other words, Summum claims that the City has denied it access to a public forum on the same terms it has granted to others. Hence, Summum's claim depends on whether the Ten Commandments monument continues to be part of the forum to which Summum seeks access (i.e., permanent displays in Roy Park), even though the City claims to have transferred the small plot of land containing the monument—first to the Lions Club and then to the Cole daughters. 10 Before turning to the question of whether the Ten Commandments monument remains part of the park, we note that the park, in general, is a traditional public forum, and it is this physical setting that defines the character of the forum to which Summum seeks access. Streets and parks are quintessential public forums, as they `have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public, and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.' Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educs. Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983) (quoting Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939)). 1 The characterization of the forum at issue is crucial because the extent to which the Government can control access depends on the nature of the relevant forum. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 800, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). In public forums, content-based exclusions (e.g., excluding Summum's Seven Aphorisms while allowing the Ten Commandments) are subject to strict scrutiny and will survive only when the exclusion is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and the exclusion is narrowly drawn to achieve that interest. Id. Alternatively, the government may impose reasonable, content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech in public forums (e.g., excluding all permanent displays). Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 761, 115 S.Ct. 2440, 132 L.Ed.2d 650 (1995). 2 11 The difficult question in this case is whether the small plot of land with the Ten Commandments monument remains part of a public forum (i.e., the city park) despite the City's efforts to sell it to a private party. As a general matter, [a] government may, by changing the physical nature of its property, alter it to such an extent that it no longer retains its public forum status. Hawkins v. City and County of Denver, 170 F.3d 1281, 1287 (10th Cir.1999) (finding that the city had sufficiently altered former public street so that it was no longer a traditional public forum). Hence, a city's sale of public property may cause it to lose its public forum status. See Utah Gospel Mission v. Salt Lake City Corp., 425 F.3d 1249, 1255 (10th Cir.2005) (rejecting the argument that a public forum may never be sold to a private entity, or that if it is sold, it remains a public forum); see also Int'l Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 699, 112 S.Ct. 2711, 120 L.Ed.2d 541 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (In some sense the government always retains authority to close a public forum, by selling the property, changing its physical character, or changing its principal use.). But a sale of property is not conclusive. Indeed, a First Amendment forum analysis may apply even when the government does not own the property at issue: forum analysis does not require the existence of government property at all. First Unitarian Church, 308 F.3d at 1122; see also Marsh v. State of Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 509, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265 (1946) (holding that the First Amendment was violated when a corporate-owned municipality restricted individual's speech); United Church of Christ v. Gateway Econ. Dev. Corp. of Greater Cleveland, Inc., 383 F.3d 449, 452-53 (6th Cir.2004) (holding that privately owned sidewalk surrounding privately owned park was a public forum). Thus, even assuming the property with the Ten Commandments monument is privately owned, it may nevertheless continue to be part of the public forum and therefore subject to the strictures of the First Amendment. See First Unitarian Church, 308 F.3d at 1131 (holding that the city's easement over private property was a public forum). 12 In determining whether private property retains its status as part of a public forum, the inquiry centers on the objective, physical characteristics of the property. Utah Gospel Mission, 425 F.3d at 1256; First Unitarian Church, 308 F.3d at 1124; see also United Church of Christ, 383 F.3d at 452 (holding that privately owned sidewalk was public forum because it resembled public sidewalk and blend[ed] into the urban grid); Venetian Casino Resort, L.L.C. v. Local Joint Executive Bd. of Las Vegas, 257 F.3d 937, 948 (9th Cir.2001) (holding that privately owned sidewalk was a traditional public forum because it was seamlessly connected to public sidewalks at either end and intended for general public use). That is, a city's intentions and efforts to remove the plot of land by transferring it to private owners do not dictate the property's status. Ark. Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U.S. 666, 678, 118 S.Ct. 1633, 140 L.Ed.2d 875 (1998); see also First Unitarian Church, 308 F.3d at 1124 (The government cannot simply declare the First Amendment status of property regardless of its nature or its public use.). In addition to examining the objective, physical characteristics of private property, we have also asked whether the city is inextricably intertwined with the ongoing operations of the private owner or property and whether the property continues to serve the same primary function as it did before the transfer. Utah Gospel Mission, 425 F.3d at 1256-58; see also First Unitarian Church, 308 F.3d at 1128 (finding the fact that easement served same purpose as public sidewalk a persuasive indication that the easement is a traditional public forum). 13 The District Court did not conduct a forum analysis to determine whether the plot of land with the Ten Commandments monument remained part of the public forum (i.e., the park) despite its sale to a private party. Instead, the court analogized the present case to the facts in Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. v. City of Marshfield, 203 F.3d 487 (7th Cir. 2000), which involved an Establishment Clause challenge to a statue of Christ in a city park. In an effort to distance itself from religious speech, the city sold the plot of land containing the statue to a private entity. The Seventh Circuit held that the city failed to take sufficient measures to end its endorsement of religion: the physical state of the park was such that a reasonable person [could] conclude that the government, rather than a private entity, endorses religion. Id. at 495 (emphasis added). 14 But a determination of whether the government is endorsing religion is not the same as a determination of whether speech is occurring in a public forum. The Seventh Circuit recognized this distinction in Marshfield when it acknowledged that, in remedying its Establishment Clause violation, the city should be mindful of the property's inclusion in a public forum: because our holding limits private speech in a public forum, any remedy must be narrowly tailored to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. Id. at 497. In other words, the court recognized that a remedy ending the city's endorsement of religion would not necessarily remove the statue from the public forum, and as part of a public forum, the statue was protected speech under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. To be sure, measures a city takes to differentiate private property from a public forum might affect both the private property's status as a public forum, as well as any perceived endorsement of religion, see id., but the inquiry is not identical. A surrounding fence and disclaimer may be sufficient to disassociate the City from private speech for purposes of the Establishment Clause, but these measures do not necessarily remove a small parcel of property from a public forum. The District Court therefore erred in relying on Marshfield to support its conclusion that the sign and fence surrounding the plot of land removed the plot from the public forum. 15 In addition to its reliance on Marshfield, the District Court's analysis is flawed in another respect. The first step in determining whether private property is nevertheless part of a public forum should be to resolve conclusively whether the property at issue is in fact privately owned. Because the District Court analyzed the property's status under the Establishment Clause, rather than the Free Speech Clause, it did not focus on the City's transfer of the property to the Lions Club and, later, to the Cole daughters. Instead, the District Court assumed that both sales were valid. For Establishment Clause purposes, the property's status as private or public may not significantly affect the relevant inquiry into whether a reasonable person could conclude that the government is endorsing religion. In the context of free speech, however, whether the property is private or public significantly affects the analysis of the property's forum status. If the land transfers in this case are invalid, the Ten Commandments monument is located on public property in a city park and is therefore clearly located within a public forum. Alternatively, if the City's transfers are valid, the reviewing court must determine whether the plot of land with the monument continues to be part of a public forum despite its private ownership (and the City's efforts to disassociate itself from the monument). To apply the latter analysis without first determining the validity of the land transfers could run afoul of the fundamental principle that courts should not formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied. McConnell v. Federal Election Comm'n, 540 U.S. 93, 192, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003) (quotations omitted); see also United States v. Cusumano, 83 F.3d 1247, 1250-51 (10th Cir.1996) (noting that the federal courts will not resolve a constitutional question until it is unavoidable). 16 The District Court should therefore have analyzed the transfers for compliance with state law, rather than assuming that both sales were valid. We therefore conduct an independent review of the record to determine whether each transfer is valid under state law. We conclude that the transfer to the Lions Club was invalid, but find the record insufficiently developed to determine whether the sale to the Cole daughters is valid and therefore remand to the District Court so that it may conduct an analysis consistent with this opinion. 17