Opinion ID: 1408111
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Associational Interests

Text: (6a) The Court of Appeal held that paragraph (a) of the preliminary injunction, enjoining defendants from Standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view with any other defendant ... or with any other known `VST' (Varrio Sureno Town or Varrio Sureno Treces) or `VSL' (Varrio Sureno Locos) member (italics added) was invalid on associational grounds; that is, the provision infringed defendants' right to associate with fellow gang members, a right protected by the First Amendment. We disagree. In a series of opinions, the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that, although the Constitution recognizes and shields from government intrusion a limited right of association, it does not recognize a generalized right of `social association.' ( Dallas v. Stanglin (1989) 490 U.S. 19, 25 [109 S.Ct. 1591, 1594, 104 L.Ed.2d 18].) As we explain, neither does the First Amendment protect the collective public activities of the gang members within the four-block precinct of Rocksprings, activities directed in the main at trafficking in illegal drugs and securing control of the community through systematic acts of intimidation and violence. (7) The high court has identified two kinds of associations entitled to First Amendment protection  those with an intrinsic or intimate value, and those that are instrumental to forms of religious and political expression and activity. Of the first, the court has said that it is central to any concept of liberty and is exemplified by personal affiliations that attend the creation and sustenance of a family  marriage ...; the raising and education of children [citation]; and cohabitation with one's relatives. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees (1984) 468 U.S. 609, 619 [104 S.Ct. 3244, 3250, 82 L.Ed.2d 462].) Such affiliations, the court has remarked, involve deep attachments and commitments to the necessarily few other individuals with whom one shares not only a special community of thoughts, experiences, and beliefs but also distinctively personal aspects of one's life. Among other things... they are distinguished by such attributes as relative smallness, a high degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship. ( Id. at p. 620 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3250].) The second kind of association that merits First Amendment protection is composed of groups whose members join together for the purpose of pursuing a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees, supra, 468 U.S. at p. 622 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3252].) This instrumental right of protected association is directly related to the individual's freedom to speak, to worship, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances because without it these liberties themselves could scarcely exist, much less thrive. ( Ibid. ) (6b) It is evident that whatever else it may be in other contexts, the street gang's conduct in Rocksprings at issue in this case fails to qualify as either of the two protected forms of association. Manifestly, in its activities within the four-block area of Rocksprings, the gang is not an association of individuals formed  for the purpose of engaging in protected speech or religious activities. ( Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int'l v. Rotary Club (1987) 481 U.S. 537, 544 [107 S.Ct. 1940, 1945, 95 L.Ed.2d 474], italics added.) Without minimizing the value of the gang to its members as a loosely structured, elective form of social association, that characteristic is in itself insufficient to command constitutional protection, at least within the circumscribed area of Rocksprings. As the court pointed out in Dallas v. Stanglin, supra, 490 U.S. at page 25 [109 S.Ct. at page 1594], [i]t is possible to find some kernel of expression in almost every activity a person undertakes  for example, walking down the street or meeting one's friends at a shopping mall  but such a kernel is not sufficient to bring the activity within the protection of the First Amendment. Defendants contend that if there is any doubt that association with other gang members is afforded constitutional protection, the Supreme Court put the notion to rest in Dawson v. Delaware (1992) 503 U.S. 159 ... where it held that association with a prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood, is constitutionally protected. This argument misreads the court's opinion in Dawson. There, the court reversed a penalty jury's capital verdict on the ground that an abbreviated stipulation of the parties  reciting that the `Aryan Brotherhood refers to a white racist prison gang' which originated in California in the 1960's `and now exist[s] in many state prisons including Delaware'  lacked any relevance to the capital sentencing issue before the jury. ( Dawson v. Delaware (1992) 503 U.S. 159, 162, 165 [112 S.Ct. 1093, 1096, 1097-1098, 117 L.Ed.2d 309].) Far from holding that association with a prison gang ... is constitutionally protected, the vice condemned by the court in Dawson was the very narrowness of the stipulation [that] left the Aryan Brotherhood evidence totally without relevance to Dawson's sentencing proceeding. ( Id. at p. 165.) Nor do the circumstances in this case implicate the other associational form worthy of First Amendment protection  personal affiliations whose characteristics include relative smallness, a high degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees, supra, 468 U.S. at p. 620 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3250].) We may assume the members of defendants' gang share common values and that group membership and the affiliations it engenders can be a source of personal enrichment to some or all of them. Defendants' organization may thus share one or two of the characteristics that define intrinsically valuable and constitutionally protected associations, lying somewhere this side of the anonymity of the Jaycees or a teenage dance hall. The constitutionally significant factors on which associational protection depends, however, are not ones to be mechanically applied and ticked off. At bottom, protected rights of association in the intimate sense are those existing along a narrow band of affiliations that permit deep and enduring personal bonds to flourish, inculcating and nourishing civilization's fundamental values, against which even the state is powerless to intrude. Freedom of association, in the sense protected by the First Amendment, does not extend to joining with others for the purpose of depriving third parties of their lawful rights. ( Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) 512 U.S. 753, 776 [114 S.Ct. 2516, 2530, 129 L.Ed.2d 593] (hereafter Madsen ).) We do not, in short, believe that the activities of the gang and its members in Rocksprings at issue here are either private or intimate as constitutionally defined; the fact that defendants may exercise some discrimination in choosing associates [by a] selective process of inclusion and exclusion ( New York State Club Assn. v. New York City (1988) 487 U.S. 1, 13 [108 S.Ct. 2225, 2234, 101 L.Ed.2d 1], italics added) does not mean that the association or its activities in Rocksprings is one that commands protection under the First Amendment.