Opinion ID: 1427790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Funeral Protest Provision Serves an Important Governmental Interest

Text: The district court found that § 3767.30 served a significant governmental interest, namely to protect the citizens of Ohio from disruption during the events associated with a funeral or burial service. Phelps-Roper, 523 F.Supp.2d at 618-19. The district court determined that the existence of a significant governmental interest was dependent on whether the funeral attendees are a captive audience to communication that is so intrusive that [the] unwilling audience cannot avoid it. Id. at 618 (citing Frisby, 487 U.S. at 474, 108 S.Ct. 2495). The district court reasoned that funeral attendees are a captive audience that cannot avert their eyes to avoid the unwanted communication because funeral attendees have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead, and that they must go to the place designated for the memorial event. Id. at 618-19. The interest analysis requires an appropriate balance between the First Amendment rights of Phelps-Roper and the interests of funeral attendees. See Hill, 530 U.S. at 714, 120 S.Ct. 2480. On one side of the balance lies Phelps-Roper's First Amendment rights; though the messages Phelps-Roper intends to convey at funerals are widely offensive to many, their-First Amendment protection is not lost. See Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 592, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969) ([T]he public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.). On the other side of the equation is the State's interest in protecting mourners at funerals from unwanted intrusions. Authority is limited on the question of whether a state has a significant interest in protecting funeral attendees from unwanted communication. Other than the district court below, two other district courts have analyzed similar funeral protest statutes, and concluded that funeral attendees are a captive audience from unwanted speech, and the state has a significant interest in their protection. See Phelps-Roper v. Nixon, 504 F.Supp.2d 691, 696 (W.D.Mo.2007), rev'd, 509 F.3d 480 (8th Cir.2007) (holding that picketing soldiers' funerals and belittling the sacrifices made by soldiers are intolerable actions, making protection of the funeral attendees a substantial interest for the state); McQueary v. Stumbo, 453 F.Supp.2d 975, 992 (E.D.Ky.2006) (assuming for purposes of preliminary injunction analysis that the state has an interest in protecting funeral attendees from unwanted communications that are so obtrusive that they are impractical to avoid). However, in Phelps-Roper v. Nixon, 509 F.3d 480 (8th Cir.2007), the Eighth Circuit reversed one of those district court decisions, holding that for purposes of preliminary injunction analysis, the plaintiff has a fair chance of proving any interest the state has in protecting funeral mourners from unwanted speech is outweighed by the First Amendment right to free speech. Id. at 487. The Supreme Court has held that the State is warranted in protecting individuals from unwanted communication that implicates certain privacy interests when the listener is somehow captive to the message. Specifically, the Court has held that a city could completely ban intrusive residential picketing in order to protect residential privacy, see Frisby, 487 U.S. at 484-85, 108 S.Ct. 2495, and that a state could restrict speakers from approaching unconsenting individuals entering a medical facility in order to protect the right to avoid unwelcome speech in that setting. See Hill, 530 U.S. at 715-18, 120 S.Ct. 2480; Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753, 768, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 (1994) (recognizing a significant governmental interest in protecting the medical privacy and the psychological and physical well-being of the patient held `captive' by medical circumstance). In Frisby, the Supreme Court upheld a restriction on residential picketing. The ordinance at issue completely ban[ned] picketing `before or about' any residence. Frisby, 487 U.S. at 476, 108 S.Ct. 2495. The Court held that the ordinance served the significant government interest of the protection of residential privacy. Id. at 484, 108 S.Ct. 2495. The Court observed that `[t]he State's interest in protecting the well-being, tranquility, and privacy of the home is certainly of the highest order in a free and civilized society,' Id. (quoting Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 471, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 65 L.Ed.2d 263 (1980)), and that the home is unique in the sense it is `the last citadel of the tired, the weary, and the sick,' Frisby, 487 U.S. at 484, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (quoting Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 125, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969) (Black, J., concurring)), and `the one retreat to which men and women can repair to escape from the tribulations of their daily pursuits.' Frisby, 487 U.S. at 484, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (quoting Carey, 447 U.S. at 471, 100 S.Ct. 2286). Integral to the Court's analysis was the fact that individuals in their homes are captive audiences to unwanted communication. The Frisby Court explained: One important aspect of residential privacy is protection of the unwilling listener. Although in many locations, we expect individuals simply to avoid speech they do not want to hear, the home is different. That we are often captives outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech does not mean we must be captives everywhere. Instead, a special benefit of the privacy all citizens enjoy within their own walls, which the State may legislate to protect, is an ability to avoid intrusions. Frisby, 487 U.S. at 484-85, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (citations, quotation marks, and alterations omitted). The Court concluded that [t]here simply is no right to force speech into the home of an unwilling listener. Id. at 485, 108 S.Ct. 2495. In Hill, the Supreme Court upheld a restriction on protests near abortion clinics. The statute at issue prohibited the unwanted approach within eight feet of another person outside an abortion clinic for the purpose of engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling. Hill, 530 U.S. at 732, 120 S.Ct. 2480. The Court held that the statute served the significant and legitimate governmental interests of providing unimpeded access to health care facilities and the avoidance of potential trauma to patients associated with confrontational protests. Id. at 715, 725-26, 120 S.Ct. 2480. The Court noted that individuals who enter a health care facility, for whatever reason, are often in particularly vulnerable physical and emotional conditions. Id. at 729, 120 S.Ct. 2480. They may be under special physical or emotional stress, id., and could potential[ly] [suffer] physical and emotional harm [] when an unwelcome individual delivers a message (whatever its content) by physically approaching ... at close range. Id. at 718 n. 25, 120 S.Ct. 2480. As in Frisby, the Hill Court found a significant interest because the audience to unwanted communication was captive. The Court emphasized the importan[ce] when conducting this interest analysis to recognize the significant difference between state restrictions on a speaker's right to address a willing audience and those that protect listeners from unwanted communication. Id. at 715-16, 120 S.Ct. 2480. The Hill Court cited Frisby for the proposition that the protection afforded to offensive messages does not always embrace offensive speech that is so intrusive that the unwilling audience cannot avoid it, id. at 716, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (citing Frisby, 487 U.S. at 487, 108 S.Ct. 2495), and noted that it may not be the content of the speech, as much as the deliberate verbal or visual assault, that justifies proscription. Hill, 530 U.S. at 716, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (quoting Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 210-11, n. 6, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975) (quotation marks and alteration omitted)). While it acknowledged the recognizable privacy interest in avoiding unwanted communication varies widely in different settings, Hill, 530 U.S. at 716, 120 S.Ct. 2480, the Court emphasized that its jurisprudence has recognized the interests of unwilling listeners in situations where `the degree of captivity makes it impractical for the unwilling viewer or auditor to avoid exposure.' Id. at 718, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (quoting Erznoznik, 422 U.S. at 209, 95 S.Ct. 2268). The Hill Court added that [t]he right to avoid unwelcome speech has special force in the privacy of the home ... and its immediate surroundings, Hill, 530 U.S. at 717, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (citing Frisby, 487 U.S. at 485, 108 S.Ct. 2495), but the right can also be protected in confrontational settings. Hill, 530 U.S. at 717, 120 S.Ct. 2480. Therefore, the Hill Court analogized the privacy interest of individuals entering a medical facility to the residential privacy interest recognized in Frisby. Hill also relied on Madsen, an earlier case that also addressed the First Amendment rights of abortion protesters outside a medical facility. In Madsen, the Court held that the following interests were sufficient to justify an appropriately tailored injunction to protect them: (1) the interest in protecting a woman's freedom to seek lawful medical or counseling services in connection with her pregnancy; (2) the interest in ensuring the public safety and order, in promoting the free flow of traffic on public streets and sidewalks, and in protecting the property rights of all its citizens; and (3) the interest in residential privacy ... applied by analogy to medical privacy. Madsen, 512 U.S. at 767-68, 114 S.Ct. 2516. However, in Madsen, the Court struck certain measures under the more stringent standard for injunctions because the measures burdened more speech than necessary to meet those interests. See id. at 771-75, 114 S.Ct. 2516 (striking measures establishing a 36-foot buffer zone from the sides of the clinic abutting private property; establishing a blanket ban on all images observable from clinic; establishing a 300-foot buffer zone from medical clinic within which the measure banned the unconsented approach of entrants to the medical facility; and establishing a 300-foot buffer zone from the residences of clinic staff within which protesting was banned). Individuals mourning the loss of a loved one share a privacy right similar to individuals in their homes or individuals entering a medical facility. Indeed, the Supreme Court has already recognized the privacy right of individuals to control the body and death images of deceased family members sufficient to prevent their disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. See Nat'l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 124 S.Ct. 1570, 158 L.Ed.2d 319 (2004). In Favish, the Supreme Court held that an individual's request for death scene photographs of a public official were protected from disclosure under Exemption 7(C) of the Act when the family [of the decedent] objects to the release of photographs showing the condition of the body at the scene of death. Id. at 160, 124 S.Ct. 1570. The Court based its holding on cultural traditions and common law protections. The Court initially noted the cultural significance of burial rites: Burial rites or their counterparts have been respected in almost all civilizations from time immemorial. See generally 26 Encyclopaedia Britannica 851 (15th ed.1985) (noting that [t]he ritual burial of the dead has been practiced from the very dawn of human culture and ... in most parts of the world); 5 Encyclopedia of Religion 450 (1987) ([F]uneral rites ... are the conscious cultural forms of one of our most ancient, universal, and unconscious impulses). They are a sign of the respect a society shows for the deceased and for the surviving family members. The power of Sophocles' story in Antigone maintains its hold to this day because of the universal acceptance of the heroine's right to insist on respect for the body of her brother. See Antigone of Sophocles, 8 Harvard Classics: Nine Greek Dramas 255 (C. Eliot ed.1909). Id. at 167-68, 124 S.Ct. 1570. The Court went on to discuss the effect of unwanted public intrusion on the survivors' mourning of the deceased: The outrage at seeing the bodies of American soldiers mutilated and dragged through the streets is but a modern instance of the same understanding of the interests decent people have for those whom they have lost. Family members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceased person who was once their own. Id. at 168, 124 S.Ct. 1570 (emphasis added). The Court then acknowledged that in addition to the well-established cultural tradition acknowledging a family's control over the body and death images of the deceased, the common law recognized a survivor's right to privacy in protecting the memory of the deceased: It is the right of privacy of the living which it is sought to enforce here. That right may in some cases be itself violated by improperly interfering with the character or memory of a deceased relative, but it is the right of the living, and not that of the dead, which is recognized. A privilege may be given the surviving relatives of a deceased person to protect his memory, but the privilege exists for the benefit of the living, to protect their feelings, and to prevent a violation of their own rights in the character and memory of the deceased.  Id. at 168-69, 124 S.Ct. 1570 (quoting Schuyler v. Curtis, 147 N.Y. 434, 42 N.E. 22, 25 (1895) (emphasis added)). Against this backdrop, the Court held that the Freedom of Information Act recognizes surviving family members' right to personal privacy with respect to their close relative's death-scene images, because the statutory privacy right protected by Exemption 7(C) goes beyond the common law and the Constitution, and [i]t would be anomalous to hold in the instant case that the statute provides even less protection than does the common law. Favish, 541 U.S. at 170, 124 S.Ct. 1570. The concerns for a survivor's rights articulated in Favish are perhaps even greater in the context of a funeral or burial service. As the Favish Court observed, burial rites implicate the most basic and universal human expression of the respect a society shows for the deceased and for the surviving family members. Id. at 168, 124 S.Ct. 1570. A funeral or burial service is a moment of collective, shared grief when many come to pay their final respects to the deceased and to offer comfort to one another. As such, funeral attendees have a personal stake in objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that ... intrud[es] upon their own grief. Id. Unwanted intrusion during the last moments the mourners share with the deceased during a sacred ritual surely infringes upon the recognized right of survivors to mourn the deceased. Furthermore, just as a resident subjected to picketing is left with no ready means of avoiding the unwanted speech, Frisby, 487 U.S. at 487, 108 S.Ct. 2495, mourners cannot easily avoid unwanted protests without sacrificing their right to partake in the funeral or burial service. And just as [p]ersons who [] attempt[] to enter health care facilities ... are often in particularly vulnerable physical and emotional conditions, Hill, 530 U.S. at 729, 120 S.Ct. 2480, it goes without saying that funeral attendees are also emotionally vulnerable. Phelps-Roper, however, contends that funeral attendance is voluntary and funeral attendees can merely avert their eyes from undesired communication to avoid funeral protests. To begin with, attendance at a funeral or burial service cannot be dismissed as nothing more than a voluntary activity. As Respondents assert, deep tradition and social obligation, quite apart from the emotional support the grieving require, compel individuals to attend a funeral or burial service. Furthermore, if individuals want to take part in an event memorializing the deceased, they must go to the place designated for the memorial event. McQueary, 453 F.Supp.2d at 992. Friends and family of the deceased should not be expected to opt-out from attending their loved one's funeral or burial service. Cf. Hill, 530 U.S. at 716, 120 S.Ct. 2480 (The First Amendment does not demand that patients at a medical facility undertake Herculean efforts to escape the cacophony of political protests.) (quoting Madsen, 512 U.S. at 772-73, 114 S.Ct. 2516) (quotation marks and alteration omitted). Nor can funeral attendees simply avert their eyes to avoid exposure to disruptive speech at a funeral or burial service. The mere presence of a protestor is sufficient to inflict the harm. See Frisby, 487 U.S. at 478, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (noting that the `evil' of targeted residential picketing is the very presence of an unwelcome visitor at the home) (emphasis added). Accordingly, we agree with the district court's conclusion that Ohio has an important interest in the protection of funeral attendees, because a deceased's survivors have a privacy right in the character and memory of the deceased.