Opinion ID: 175055
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tattooing as First Amendment Expression

Text: The district court assumed that the process of tattooing is at most non-verbal conduct expressive of an idea rather than speech itself. This determination is consistent with cases from other courts that have emphasized the distinction between the product and the process of tattooing and have held that the physical process of tattooing is conduct subject to Spence 's sufficiently imbued test. See, e.g., Hold Fast Tattoo, 580 F.Supp.2d at 660 (analyzing tattooing under Spence 's framework based on the premise that [t]he act of tattooing is one step removed from the actual expressive conduct); Yurkew, 495 F.Supp. at 1253-54 (regardless of whether. . . the image conveyed by the tattoo[ ] is an art form or amounts to art, the process of tattooing is undeniably conduct that is subject to the Spence test). These courts then held that tattooing fails the Spence test. See, e.g., Hold Fast Tattoo, 580 F.Supp.2d at 660 (holding that [t]he act of tattooing . . . itself is not intended to convey a particularized message); Yurkew, 495 F.Supp. at 1253-54 (holding that the actual process of tattooing is not sufficiently communicative to come within the First Amendment, because there has been no showing that the normal observer. . . would regard the process of injecting dye into a person's skin through the use of needles as communicative); White, 560 S.E.2d at 423 (Unlike burning [a] flag, the process of injecting dye to create [a] tattoo is not sufficiently communicative to warrant [First Amendment] protection[ ].). Similarly, the City argues that [t]he process of injecting dye into a person's skin through the use of needles, in contrast with any message conveyed by the tattoo image, is non-expressive conduct that must, in order to acquire First Amendment protection [under Spence ], carry with it an intent to convey a message that will be understood by those who viewed it. For the reasons set forth below, we disagree with the basic premise underlying the conclusions of both the City and the lower courts that have considered this issue. The tattoo itself, the process of tattooing, and even the business of tattooing are not expressive conduct but purely expressive activity fully protected by the First Amendment.
There appears to be little dispute that the tattoo itself is pure First Amendment speech. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the Constitution looks beyond written or spoken words as mediums of expression. Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557, 569, 115 S.Ct. 2338, 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995). Accordingly, the Supreme Court and our court have recognized various forms of entertainment and visual expression as purely expressive activities, including music without words, Ward, 491 U.S. at 790, 109 S.Ct. 2746; dance, Schad, 452 U.S. at 65-66, 101 S.Ct. 2176; topless dancing, Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 932-934, 95 S.Ct. 2561, 45 L.Ed.2d 648 (1975); movies, Joseph Burstyn, Inc.v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 501-02, 72 S.Ct. 777, 96 L.Ed. 1098 (1952); parades with or without banners or written messages, Hurley, 515 U.S. at 568, 115 S.Ct. 2338; and both paintings and their sale, White v. City of Sparks, 500 F.3d 953, 956 (9th Cir.2007). We have afforded these expressive activities full constitutional protection without relying on the Spence test. See Hurley, 515 U.S. at 569, 115 S.Ct. 2338 ([A] narrow, succinctly articulable message is not a condition of constitutional protection, which if confined to expressions conveying a `particularized message,' would never reach the unquestionably shielded painting of Jackson Pollack, music of Arnold Schöenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll. (citation omitted) (quoting Spence, 418 U.S. at 411, 94 S.Ct. 2727)). Tattoos are generally composed of words, realistic or abstract images, symbols, or a combination of these, all of which are forms of pure expression that are entitled to full First Amendment protection. Tattoos can express a countless variety of messages and serve a wide variety of functions, including: decorative; religious; magical; punitive; and as an indication of identity, status, occupation, or ownership. Mark Gustafson, The Tattoo in the Later Roman Empire and Beyond, in WRITTEN ON THE BODY: THE TATTOO IN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 17 (Jane Caplan ed., Reaktion Books 2000); see also Alan Govenar, The Variable Context of Chicano Tattooing, in MARKS OF CIVILIZATION 209 (Arnold Rubin ed., Regents of the University of California 1988) (discussing the religious, social, and political purposes of tattooing); Clinton R. Sanders, Drill and Frill: Client Choice, Client Typologies, and Interactional Control in Commercial Tattooing Settings, in MARKS OF CIVILIZATION, supra, at 222-23 (discussing the wide variety of reasons people choose to get a tattoo, including symbolization of an interpersonal relationship, participation in a group, representation of key interests and activities, self-identification, and making a decorative or aesthetic statement). We do not profess to understand the work of tattoo artists to the same degree as we know the finely wrought sketches of Leonardo da Vinci or Albrecht Dürer, but we can take judicial notice of the skill, artistry, and care that modern tattooists have demonstrated. The principal difference between a tattoo and, for example, a pen-and-ink drawing, is that a tattoo is engrafted onto a person's skin rather than drawn on paper. This distinction has no significance in terms of the constitutional protection afforded the tattoo; a form of speech does not lose First Amendment protection based on the kind of surface it is applied to. It is true that the nature of the surface to which a tattoo is applied and the procedure by which the tattoo is created implicate important health and safety concerns that may not be present in other visual arts, but this consideration is relevant to the governmental interest potentially justifying a restriction on protected speech, not to whether the speech is constitutionally protected. We have little difficulty recognizing that a tattoo is a form of pure expression entitled to full constitutional protection.
Our next task is to determine whether the process of tattooing is purely expressive activity. We hold that it is. Spence 's sufficiently imbued test has been reserved for processes that do not produce pure expression but rather produce symbolic conduct that, on its face, does not necessarily convey a message. Cohen, 403 U.S. at 18, 91 S.Ct. 1780. Burning a flag, see Johnson, 491 U.S. at 411, 109 S.Ct. 2533, burning a draft card, see O'Brien, 391 U.S. at 370, 88 S.Ct. 1673, and wearing a black armband, see Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 505-06, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969), can be done for reasons having nothing to do with any expression, and so require an interpretive step to determine the expressive elements of these processes. However, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever drawn a distinction between the process of creating a form of pure speech (such as writing or painting) and the product of these processes (the essay or the artwork) in terms of the First Amendment protection afforded. Although writing and painting can be reduced to their constituent acts, and thus described as conduct, we have not attempted to disconnect the end product from the act of creation. Thus, we have not drawn a hard line between the essays John Peter Zenger published and the act of setting the type. Cf. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minn. Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575, 582, 103 S.Ct. 1365, 75 L.Ed.2d 295 (1983) (holding that a tax on ink and paper burdens rights protected by the First Amendment). The process of expression through a medium has never been thought so distinct from the expression itself that we could disaggregate Picasso from his brushes and canvas, or that we could value Beethoven without the benefit of strings and woodwinds. In other words, we have never seriously questioned that the processes of writing words down on paper, painting a picture, and playing an instrument are purely expressive activities entitled to full First Amendment protection. Tattooing is a process like writing words down or drawing a picture except that it is performed on a person's skin. As with putting a pen to paper, the process of tattooing is not intended to symbolize anything. Rather, the entire purpose of tattooing is to produce the tattoo, and the tattoo cannot be created without the tattooing process any more than the Declaration of Independence could have been created without a goose quill, foolscap, and ink. Thus, as with writing or painting, the tattooing process is inextricably intertwined with the purely expressive product (the tattoo), and is itself entitled to full First Amendment protection. We are further persuaded by the fact that the process of tattooing is more akin to traditional modes of expression (like writing) than the process involved in producing a parade, which the Supreme Court has held cannot be meaningfully separated from the parade's expressive product in terms of the constitutional protection afforded. See Hurley, 515 U.S. at 568, 115 S.Ct. 2338 (holding that [p]arades are . . . a form of expression, not just motion, and noting the inherent expressiveness of marching). Thus, we have no difficulty holding that the tattooing process is entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the process of parading. Moreover, it makes no difference whether or not, as the district court determined, the customer has [the] ultimate control over which design she wants tattooed on her skin. The fact that both the tattooist and the person receiving the tattoo contribute to the creative process or that the tattooist, as Anderson put it, provide[s] a service, does not make the tattooing process any less expressive activity, because there is no dispute that the tattooist applies his creative talents as well. Under the district court's logic, the First Amendment would not protect the process of writing most newspaper articlesafter all, writers of such articles are usually assigned particular stories by their editors, and the editors generally have the last word on what content will appear in the newspaper. Nor would the First Amendment protect painting by commission, such as Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel. As with all collaborative creative processes, both the tattooist and the person receiving the tattoo are engaged in expressive activity.
Finally, the fact that the City's ban relates to tattooing businesses rather than the tattooing process itself [5] does not affect whether the activity regulated is protected by the First Amendment. In City of Sparks, we held that even an artist's sale of his original artwork constitutes speech protected under the First Amendment. 500 F.3d at 954 (emphasis added). We first emphasized the inherent expressiveness of the painting itselfin particular, that a painting conveys[the artist's] sense of form, topic, and perspective[,] . . . may express a clear social position . . . [or] the artist's vision of movement and color, . . . [and] holds potential to `affect public attitudes' by spurring thoughtful reflection in and discussion among its viewers. Id. at 956 (citation omitted) (quoting Joseph Burstyn, 343 U.S. at 501, 72 S.Ct. 777). We then rejected the city's argument that [plaintiff's] sale of his paintings removes them from the ambit of protected expression. Id.; see also City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ'g. Co., 486 U.S. 750, 756 n. 5, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988) ([T]he degree of First Amendment protection is not diminished merely because the [protected expression] is sold rather than given away.); Riley v. Nat'l Fed'n of the Blind of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781, 801, 108 S.Ct. 2667, 101 L.Ed.2d 669 (1988) (It is well settled that a speaker's rights are not lost merely because compensation is received; a speaker is no less a speaker because he or she is paid to speak.). The Second Circuit reached a similar conclusion in Bery v. City of New York, 97 F.3d 689 (2d Cir.1996), where the court held that the sale of visual artwork is expression fully protected by the First Amendment. Id. at 695. The court rejected the city's argument that, unlike the production of art, the sale of art is conduct and should therefore be subject to Spence 's test. Id. The court held that [t]he sale of protected materials is also protected, id. (citing Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 756 n. 5, 108 S.Ct. 2138), reasoning that without the money, the plaintiffs would not have engaged in the protected expressive activity, id. at 696. City of Sparks and Bery stand for the proposition that because the sale of a painting is intertwined with the process of producing the painting, the sale is entitled to full constitutional protection without any need to resort to the Spence test. The same logic applies to the business of tattooing. Thus, we conclude that the business of tattooing qualifies as purely expressive activity rather than conduct with an expressive component, and is therefore entitled to full constitutional protection without any need to subject it to Spence 's sufficiently imbued test. The business is subject to reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions (as explained in the next section), but the fact that the tattoo is for sale does not deprive it of its First Amendment protection.