Opinion ID: 1408111
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Amendment Challenges

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.
(8a) The Court of Appeal also invalidated paragraph (a) of the trial court's preliminary decree on the ground that these provisions were overbroad, as that term has come to be understood and applied in the context of First Amendment litigation. It acknowledged that the reach of the overbreadth doctrine has been cabined in a series of high court opinions, e.g., New York State Club Assn. v. New York City, supra, 487 U.S. at page 11 [108 S.Ct. at page 2233] (doctrine is a narrow exception and requires finding of `a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court'); Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973) 413 U.S. 601, 613 [93 S.Ct. 2908, 2916, 37 L.Ed.2d 830] (overbreadth doctrine is strong medicine that is used sparingly and only as a last resort); and Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) 508 U.S. 476, 487-488 [113 S.Ct. 2194, 2201, 124 L.Ed.2d 436]. However, it did not consider one crucial fact: No one, apart from defendants themselves, is or can be subject to the prophylactic relief granted by the trial court. (9) As we explain, the foundation of the overbreadth doctrine is the inhibitory effect a contested statute may exert on the freedom of those who, although possibly subject to its reach, are not before the court. It is out of a generous concern for a statute's effects on the activities of such third persons that the high court has permitted facial challenges on behalf of those who are not parties to the litigation. Thus, even litigants whose activities are not constrained by the statute at issue and who might, as the court wrote of the permit requirement in Thornhill v. Alabama (1940) 310 U.S. 88, 97 [60 S.Ct. 736, 742, 84 L.Ed. 1093], have had a license for the asking may ... call into question the whole scheme of licensing when ... prosecuted for failure to procure it. Defendants do not attack the public nuisance statute itself, claiming that it suffers from the vice of overbreadth; instead, they attack the terms of the interlocutory decree as being unconstitutionally overbroad. The source of the high court's concern in the overbreadth cases, however, and the foundation of the doctrine itself, is the perceived danger to the constitutionally protected interests of those who, because they are not before the court, lack a judicial forum in which to litigate claims that a statute sweeps within its ambit other activities that in ordinary circumstances constitute an exercise of freedom of speech ( Thornhill v. Alabama, supra, 310 U.S. at p. 97 [60 S.Ct. at p. 742]), and thus may inhibit the constitutionally protected speech of [such] third parties ( City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent (1984) 466 U.S. 789, 798 [104 S.Ct. 2118, 2125, 80 L.Ed.2d 772]). It is the absent members of this unrepresented class who, sensitive to the perils posed by ... indefinite language, avoid the risk ... by restricting their conduct to that which is unquestionably safe ( Baggett v. Bullitt (1964) 377 U.S. 360, 372 [84 S.Ct. 1316, 1323, 12 L.Ed.2d 377]) for whom the overbreadth doctrine was fashioned. (See also Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 612 [93 S.Ct. at p. 2916] [Litigants, therefore, are permitted to challenge a statute not because their own rights of free expression are violated, but because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute's very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.]; In re M.S. (1995) 10 Cal.4th 698, 709 [42 Cal. Rptr.2d 355, 896 P.2d 1365] [litigants may challenge a statute not because their own rights of free expression are violated, but because the very existence of an overbroad statute may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected expression].) (8b) The high court recently identified a related and constitutionally significant difference between injunctions and statutes in the context of protected speech claims. In Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753, the court pointed out that the narrow and particularized focus inherent in the nature of the injunction as an equitable remedy is also significant in evaluating the contention that features of a given decree suffer from constitutional overbreadth. Like the injunction in Madsen, the trial court's interlocutory decree here does not embody the broad and abstract commands of a statute. Instead, it is the product of a concrete judicial proceeding prompted by particular events  inimical to the well-being of the residents of the community of Rocksprings  that led to a specific request by the City for preventive relief. As with any injunction, the preliminary decree here is addressed to identifiable parties and to specific circumstances; the enjoined acts are particularly described in the trial court's order. Unlike the pervasive chill of an abstract statutory command that may broadly affect the conduct of an absent class and induce self-censorship, the decree here did not issue until after these defendants had had their day in court, a procedure that assures `a prompt and carefully circumscribed determination of the issue.' ( Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown (1957) 354 U.S. 436, 442 [77 S.Ct. 1325, 1328, 1 L.Ed.2d 1469].) In short, as one commentator has pointed out, An injunction may be more effective at stopping the activity at which it is aimed, but it is also more narrowly confined. There is less risk of deterring activities beyond the adjudicated target of suppression  activities plainly outside the injunctive ban but arguably within the necessarily more general prohibition of a penal law. (Jeffries, Rethinking Prior Restraint (1983) 92 Yale L.Rev. 409, 429.) Manifestly, the paradigm for an overbreadth challenge is not present in this case. Here there is no possibility that the concerns motivating the high court in its classic overbreadth opinions  the chilling effect of abstract, broadly framed statutes on the conduct of those not before the court (see, e.g., Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965) 380 U.S. 479, 487 [85 S.Ct. 1116, 1121, 14 L.Ed.2d 22])  could place at risk any protected conduct other than that of defendants themselves. The only individuals subject to the trial court's interlocutory decree in this case, including those features contested as overbroad, are named parties to this action; their activities allegedly protected by the First Amendment have been and are being aggressively litigated. There is accordingly no basis, legal or factual, for the professed concern that protected speech or communicative conduct by anyone other than defendants might be endangered by the terms of the trial court's injunction. In that sense, defendants' claim of overbreadth, made with respect to paragraph (a) of the preliminary injunction, is not cognizable. Our conclusion with respect to defendants' overbreadth claim does not mean they may not be heard to complain that the provisions of the preliminary injunction  as applied to them and their conduct in Rocksprings  are broader than constitutionally sustainable. Rather, in this case that contention falls under the standard formulated by the court in Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753  the requirement that the superior court's decree burden no more of defendants' speech than necessary to serve the significant governmental interest at stake. We will consider that distinct claim separately, when we come to evaluate the sufficiency of the injunction under the standard announced by the court in Madsen. (See, post, at pp. 1119-1122.)