Opinion ID: 541744
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Speech v. Conduct

Text: 32 On this appeal the plaintiffs contend that begging is pure speech fully protected by the First Amendment. Recently, the Supreme Court once again admonished against adopting the  'view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech' whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.'  Texas v. Johnson, U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2539, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989) (quoting United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1678, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968)). The Court further cautioned that [t]he Government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word. Id., 109 S.Ct. at 2540. Despite the warning, the plaintiffs nevertheless invoke the First Amendment on the ground that whenever a homeless and needy person is extending his hand, he is communicating. 33 We initiate our discussion by expressing grave doubt as to whether begging and panhandling in the subway are sufficiently imbued with a communicative character to justify constitutional protection. The real issue here is whether begging constitutes the kind of expressive conduct protected to some extent by the First Amendment. 34 Common sense tells us that begging is much more conduct than it is speech. As then Circuit Judge Scalia once remarked: That this should seem a bold assertion is a commentary upon how far judicial and scholarly discussion of this basic constitutional guarantee has strayed from common and common-sense understanding. Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 703 F.2d 586, 622 (D.C.Cir.1983) (rejecting the notion that sleeping in public parks is expressive conduct about the plight of the homeless) (Scalia, J., dissenting), rev'd sub nom. Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984). Here, what common sense beckons the law ordains. 35 In determining whether particular conduct possesses sufficient communicative elements to bring the First Amendment into play, the Supreme Court asks whether '[a]n intent to convey a particularized message was present, and [whether] the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.'  Spence v. Washington, 418 U.S. 405, 410-11, 94 S.Ct. 2727, 2730, 41 L.Ed.2d 842 (1974) (quoted in Texas v. Johnson, 109 S.Ct. at 2539) (emphasis added). For example, the Supreme Court has recognized the expressive nature in the burning of a United States flag by a protestor during a political march at the Republican National Convention, Texas v. Johnson, 109 S.Ct. at 2540, in the wearing of black arm-bands by school students on particular days in protest of the Vietnam War, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 505, 89 S.Ct. 733, 735, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969), in the peaceful picketing by union members of a supermarket in a large shopping center to protest unfair labor practices, Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 509 v. Logan Valley Plaza, Inc., 391 U.S. 308, 313-14, 88 S.Ct. 1601, 1605-06, 20 L.Ed.2d 603 (1968), and in conducting a silent sit-in by black persons against a library's segregation policy, Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 141-42, 86 S.Ct. 719, 723-24, 15 L.Ed.2d 637 (1966). We note that in all of these cases there was little doubt from the circumstances of the conduct that it formed a clear and particularized political or social message very much understood by those who viewed it. More than one constitutional scholar has commented that in these cases the expressive behavior is '100% action and 100% expression.'  L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law Sec. 12-7, at 827 (2d ed. 1988) (quoting Ely, Flag Desecration: A Case Study in the Roles of Categorization and Balancing in First Amendment Analysis, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 1482, 1495-96 (1975)). In other words, the conduct and the expression were inextricably joined. 36 Pursuant to the criteria articulated in Spence, 418 U.S. at 410-11, 94 S.Ct. at 2730, begging is not inseparably intertwined with a particularized message. It seems fair to say that most individuals who beg are not doing so to convey any social or political message. Rather, they beg to collect money. Arguably, any given beggar may have [a]n intent to convey a particularized message, e.g.: Government benefits are inadequate; I am homeless; or There is a living to be made in panhandling. To be sure, the possibilities are myriad. However, despite the intent of an individual beggar, there hardly seems to be a great likelihood that the subway passengers who witness the conduct are able to discern what the particularized message might be. 37 Even where an individual intends to communicate some particularized message through an act of begging, we wonder whether the conduct is not divested of any expressive element as a result of the special surrounding circumstances involved in this case. In the subway, it is the conduct of begging and panhandling, totally independent of any particularized message, that passengers experience as threatening, harassing and intimidating. Unlike burning a flag, wearing a black arm-band, sitting or marching, begging in the subway is experienced as transgressive conduct whether devoid of or inclusive of an intent to convey a particularized message. See O'Brien, 391 U.S. at 382, 88 S.Ct. at 1681 (The case at bar is therefore unlike one where ... the communication allegedly integral to the conduct is itself thought to be harmful.). Given the passengers' apprehensive state of mind, it seems rather unlikely that they would be disposed to focus attention on any message, let alone a tacit and particularized one. 38 The only message that we are able to espy as common to all acts of begging is that beggars want to exact money from those whom they accost. While we acknowledge that passengers generally understand this generic message, we think it falls far outside the scope of protected speech under the First Amendment. We certainly do not consider it as a means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375, 47 S.Ct. 641, 648, 71 L.Ed. 1095 (1927) (Brandeis, J., joined by Holmes, J., concurring). Nor do we deem it as communicating one of the inexpressible emotions falling  'under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons.'  Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 26, 25, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 1788, 29 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971) (quoting Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 528, 68 S.Ct. 665, 676, 92 L.Ed. 840 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)). Consistent with its prior circumscription of what constitutes protected expressive conduct, the Supreme Court recently declared: It is possible to find some kernel of expression in almost every activity a person undertakes ... but such a kernel is not sufficient to bring the activity within the protection of the First Amendment. City of Dallas v. Stanglin, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1591, 1595, 104 L.Ed.2d 18 (1989). 39 The plaintiffs also contend that begging and panhandling on the subway sometimes occasion questions from, and conversations with, passengers. We do not doubt that the proscribed activity may sometimes involve speech and upon occasion even give rise to the exchange of speech. We do not accept, however, that this incidental speech is one and the same as the conduct being regulated. Actual speech which may arise as an incident to conduct is not at issue here. The regulation at stake does not prevent any individual from speaking to passengers. Further, the First Amendment protects speech and not every act that may conceivably occasion engagement in conversation. 40 Whether with or without words, the object of begging and panhandling is the transfer of money. Speech simply is not inherent to the act; it is not of the essence of the conduct. Although our holding today does not ultimately rest on an ontological distinction between speech and conduct, we think this case presents a particularly poignant example of how the distinction subsists in right reason and coincides with common sense. To be sure, these qualities ought not to be forsaken in our legal analysis.