Opinion ID: 1266000
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: First Amendment due process.

Text: (12a) Moreover, the challenged removal provision is additionally defective because the seizure of newsracks implicates not only the owner's property rights but also the public's First Amendment rights. (13a) As we shall explain, although the First Amendment does not immunize newsracks from immediate, pre-notice seizure in all circumstances, the Constitution does require that any such summary seizure procedure be narrowly drafted so as to minimize interference with First Amendment rights. The present provision does not satisfy this constitutional imperative. (12b) As we have seen, subdivision (5) authorizes any public officer, on his own volition, to remove from a public sidewalk any newsrack that he believes is in violation of any one of the numerous size, weight, appearance or location regulations contained in the ordinance. The removal of a newsrack pursuant to this provision will generally result, of course, in the immediate suppression of any newspapers or other periodicals which are contained within the rack at the time of removal. Although a newsrack owner will subsequently receive notice of the seizure and will be permitted to recover his rack upon payment of a fee, such recovery in the case of a daily newspaper will invariably come too late to avoid the total suppression of the newsworthy contents of the seized papers. Moreover, while in some cases the seizure of a single newsrack will constitute only a minor inconvenience to the public if the newspaper or periodical contained in the rack is available at a nearby store or newsstand, stores and newsstands do not carry all publications nor are such establishments open at all hours. (See fn. 3, ante. ) Thus, the seizure of a newsrack can have a significant, deleterious effect on the dissemination of protected expression. The city defends the challenged seizure procedure as a reasonable means of enforcing its time, place, and manner regulations on newsracks. [9] (13b) But, as a series of cases of both the United States Supreme Court and this court teach, under the Fourteenth Amendment, a State is not free to adopt whatever procedures it pleases [in enforcing valid regulations] ... without regard to the possible consequences for constitutionally protected speech. ( Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) 367 U.S. 717, 731 [6 L.Ed.2d 1127, 1136, 81 S.Ct. 1708]; see, e.g., Speiser v. Randall (1958) 357 U.S. 513, 520 [2 L.Ed.2d 1460, 1469, 78 S.Ct. 1332]; Freedman v. Maryland (1965) 380 U.S. 51, 57-58 [13 L.Ed.2d 649, 653-654, 85 S.Ct. 734]; Carroll v. Princess Anne (1968) 393 U.S. 175, 180-185 [21 L.Ed.2d 325, 330-333, 89 S.Ct. 347]; Flack v. Municipal Court (1967) 66 Cal.2d 981, 989-993 [59 Cal. Rptr. 872, 429 P.2d 192]. See generally Monaghan, First Amendment Due Process (1970) 83 Harv.L.Rev. 518.) Thus, for example, in Flack v. Municipal Court, supra, 66 Cal.2d 981, 990-991, we held that [w]hile it is settled that in the ordinary case a search incident to an arrest is not `unreasonable' if the arrest itself is lawful [citations], the First Amendment compels more restrictive rules in cases in which the arrest and search relate to alleged obscenity.... [W]ith the exception of a situation involving a legitimate emergency, even if the search is contemporaneous with an arrest, a search warrant must be secured prior to any search for or seizure of material alleged to be obscene. (Fns. omitted.) Similarly, in Carroll v. Princess Anne, supra, 393 U.S. 175, 180 [21 L.Ed.2d 325, 330-331], the United States Supreme Court stressed the need for especially sensitive procedures in the First Amendment field: There is a place in our jurisprudence for ex parte issuance, without notice, of temporary restraining orders of short duration; but there is no place within the area of basic freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment for such orders where no showing is made that it is impossible to serve or to notify the opposing parties and to give them an opportunity to participate. (See also United Farm Workers of America v. Superior Court (1975) 14 Cal.3d 902 [122 Cal. Rptr. 877, 537 P.2d 1237].) (12c) The city argues that the ordinance's seizure provision does take First Amendment concerns into account, since it explicitly precludes the removal of any newsrack on the basis of the content of the material within the rack. (See fn. 5, ante. ) Emphasizing that most of the ordinance's regulations are intended to prevent interference with pedestrian or vehicular traffic, the city maintains that the public interest in the immediate elimination of any such hazard justifies whatever incidental harm to First Amendment values results from the summary seizure of offending newsracks. In this regard, the city analogizes the seizure of newsracks under subdivision (f) (5) to the summary seizure of illegally parked or abandoned automobiles pursuant to Vehicle Code section 22650 et seq. Although we cannot agree that the removal of newsracks from the public sidewalks can be equated with the removal of vehicles from the public streets  the removal of illegally parked cars does not, after all, result in the suppression of protected expression  we do believe that a comparison of the seizure provisions of the Los Angeles newsrack ordinance and the Vehicle Code provisions relied upon by defendant is instructive. Unlike the challenged newsrack ordinance, the Vehicle Code sections do not broadly sanction the summary removal of a vehicle for any parking violation whatsoever, but rather generally authorize seizure only when an illegally parked vehicle actually creates a hazard or constitutes an obstruction to traffic. (See Veh. Code, § 22651, subds. (a) and (b).) Indeed, in several instances, the Vehicle Code sections specifically provide that even when a vehicle does constitute such a hazard, removal is authorized only when it is impractical to move such vehicle ... to another point on the highway. (See Veh. Code, § 22651, subds. (d) and (e).) In contrast, subdivision (5) does not limit its removal sanction to violations which actually create hazards for pedestrians or motor vehicles or which otherwise interfere with the safe use of public streets or sidewalks. Instead, under the terms of the ordinance, a newsrack may be summarily removed  and its contents consequently suppressed  if the rack simply weighs a few pounds too much (§ 42.00, subd. (f)(3)(E)) or if a public officer believes that the rack is not clean or neat. (§ 42.00, subd. (f)(3)(H).) Moreover, the ordinance permits a public officer immediately to remove any rack which is not properly placed within the strict limits stipulated in the ordinance, even when the violation could be cured simply by moving the rack a few inches or a few feet. [10] In light of the controversial nature of many of the newspapers and periodicals distributed through newsracks, and the fact that newsracks will often, in the course of normal use by the public, be jostled or moved into technical noncompliance with the ordinance's precise placement regulations, subdivision (5)'s authorization of summary removal for any violation  no matter how minor  creates a very real risk that individual enforcement officers may consider a variety of extraneous factors, including the contents of a newsrack, in determining whether or not a particular rack should be removed from a public sidewalk. Past cases have pointed to the potential for such arbitrary or discriminatory suppression of protected expression at the hands of individual police officers as a primary justification for requiring that enforcement procedures in the First Amendment area be structured so as to minimize the danger of such unilateral censorship. (See, e.g., Flack v. Municipal Court, supra, 66 Cal.2d 981, 986-992; Roaden v. Kentucky (1973) 413 U.S. 496, 501-506 [37 L.Ed.2d 757, 762-766, 93 S.Ct. 2796]; Stanford v. Texas (1965) 379 U.S. 476, 485 [13 L.Ed.2d 431, 437, 85 S.Ct. 506]; Marcus v. Search Warrant, supra, 367 U.S. 717, 731-733 [6 L.Ed.2d 1127, 1135-1137].) Because subdivision (5) makes no attempt to limit an individual officer's summary seizure authority to situations in which immediate removal is mandated by public need (see Roaden v. Kentucky, supra, 413 U.S. 496, 505 [37 L.Ed.2d 757, 765]; Flack v. Municipal Court, supra, 66 Cal.2d 981, 991), we conclude that the subdivision is incompatible with governing First Amendment principles. Our holding in this regard, however, should not be misunderstood. We have no doubt that the City of Los Angeles is constitutionally empowered to provide for the immediate seizure, without prior notice or hearing, of any newsrack that poses a danger to pedestrians or vehicles. Moreover, even when no such danger is present, the city may authorize the seizure of an offending newsrack so long as the owner has been notified of the imminent seizure and has been given a reasonable opportunity either to cure the violation or to contest the seizure in an informal administrative forum. Finally, the city may, of course, impose alternative, constitutionally less intrusive sanctions, such as fines, to encourage owners to police their own newsracks to insure that the racks remain in compliance with the city's reasonable time, place and manner regulations. Obviously, however, it is for the city, and not this court, to decide what enforcement procedure, if any, should be established to replace the constitutionally deficient procedure contained in the present ordinance.