Opinion ID: 2499424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Strict Scrutiny to TRO

Text: [¶ 74] We understand the Town of Jackson faced a difficult situation with the disturbing materials OSA directed toward audiences of children, and with our decision today, this Court does not intend to be dismissive of the Town's legitimate concerns and efforts to address those concerns in a limited timeframe. Nonetheless, the TRO requested by the Town and issued by the district court imposed a prior restraint on the OSA's public issue speech in a traditional public forum, based on the content of that speech. Any such restriction is presumptively invalid and faces the most demanding level of First Amendment scrutiny. We find the Town did not meet its burden under the First Amendment's rigorous constitutional standards. [¶ 75] The strict scrutiny level of analysis requires that the restriction on speech be justified by a compelling government interest and be narrowly drawn to serve that interest. Brown, 131 S.Ct. at 2738; Ysursa v. Pocatello Educ. Ass'n, 555 U.S. 353, 358-59, 129 S.Ct. 1093, 1098, 172 L.Ed.2d 770 (2009); R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 395-96, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 2549-50, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992). The government bears the burden of establishing its compelling government interest and that the interest cannot be served in a less restrictive manner. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 428-29, 126 S.Ct. 1211, 1219, 163 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2006). The Supreme Court has explained the government's burden as follows: When the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions. Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Assn., Inc. v. United States, 527 U.S. 173, 183, 119 S.Ct. 1923, 144 L.Ed.2d 161 (1999) ([T]he Government bears the burden of identifying a substantial interest and justifying the challenged restriction); [ A.C.L.U. v. ] Reno, 521 U.S. [844], at 879, 117 S.Ct. 2329[, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997)] (The breadth of this content-based restriction of speech imposes an especially heavy burden on the Government to explain why a less restrictive provision would not be as effective ...); Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761, 770-771, 113 S.Ct. 1792, 123 L.Ed.2d 543 (1993) ([A] governmental body seeking to sustain a restriction on commercial speech must demonstrate that the harms it recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them to a material degree); Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 480, 109 S.Ct. 3028, 106 L.Ed.2d 388 (1989) ([T]he State bears the burden of justifying its restrictions ...); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 509, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969) (In order for the State ... to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint). When the Government seeks to restrict speech based on its content, the usual presumption of constitutionality afforded congressional enactments is reversed. Content-based regulations are presumptively invalid, R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992), and the Government bears the burden to rebut that presumption. United States v. Playboy Entm't Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 816-17, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 1888, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000).
[¶ 76] The Town cites the need to protect children attending the Boy Scout Elk Fest from disturbing images of aborted and dismembered fetuses as its compelling government interest in support of the TRO. It further asserts an interest in preserving the peace, order, safety and tranquility of the Boy Scout Elk Fest. [¶ 77] The need to protect the psychological well being of children has been recognized as a compelling government interest. Sable Communications, 492 U.S. at 126, 109 S.Ct. at 2836; Ginsberg, 390 U.S. at 638, 88 S.Ct. at 1280. The Supreme Court, however, has declared that that interest is not without boundary. [M]inors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection, and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them. Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212-213, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975) (citation omitted). No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, Ginsberg, supra, at 640-641, 88 S.Ct. 1274; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 165, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944), but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. Speech that is neither obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them. Erznoznik, supra, at 213-214, 95 S.Ct. 2268. Brown, 131 S.Ct. at 2735-36. [¶ 78] Our concern in the present case is not with the general proposition that protecting youth is a compelling government interest, but is instead with the record. The record contains no evidence concerning the injury or potential injury to children from viewing the images displayed by OSA, and of particular importance in the context of the request for injunctive relief, evidence of irreparable harm to the children. The affidavit of Lt. Gilliam describes the contact OSA had with youth in the community and describes the materials OSA showed to the young audience, but it does not describe how those materials impacted them, or could impact them. In the absence of such evidence, the government has not made its required showing of an actual problem in need of solving. Brown, 131 S.Ct. at 2738; Playboy, 529 U.S. at 816, 120 S.Ct. at 1888. [¶ 79] We turn then to the Town's concerns with a breach of the peace. While a government does have a recognized interest in maintaining peace in its community and at its events, the Supreme Court has held that this is not a basis to proscribe speech, unless that speech is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 409, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2542, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989); see also Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 1829, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969). The Court has observed: The State's position, therefore, amounts to a claim that an audience that takes serious offense at particular expression is necessarily likely to disturb the peace and that the expression may be prohibited on this basis. Our precedents do not countenance such a presumption. On the contrary, they recognize that a principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 896, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949). See also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 551, 85 S.Ct. 453, 462, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. at 508-509, 89 S.Ct. at 737-38; Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 615, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 1689, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971); Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 55-56, 108 S.Ct. 876, 881-882, 99 L.Ed.2d 41 (1988). It would be odd indeed to conclude both that if it is the speaker's opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 745, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 3038, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978) (opinion of STEVENS, J.), and that the government may ban the expression of certain disagreeable ideas on the unsupported presumption that their very disagreeableness will provoke violence. Thus, we have not permitted the government to assume that every expression of a provocative idea will incite a riot, but have instead required careful consideration of the actual circumstances surrounding such expression, asking whether the expression is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 1829, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (reviewing circumstances surrounding rally and speeches by Ku Klux Klan). To accept Texas' arguments that it need only demonstrate the potential for a breach of the peace, Brief for Petitioner 37, and that every flag burning necessarily possesses that potential, would be to eviscerate our holding in Brandenburg. This we decline to do. Texas, 491 U.S. at 408-09, 109 S.Ct. at 2542 (footnote omitted). [¶ 80] The evidence the Town submitted concerning the potential for a breach of peace as a result of the OSA demonstrations was an incident in which a counter-protestor tried to run over an OSA member with his vehicle. Lt. Gilliam's affidavit reported that this individual was arrested and charged. The record contains no evidence that OSA engages in speech that is directed at inciting violence or is likely to produce imminent lawless action, and in the absence of such evidence, we conclude that prohibiting OSA's speech is not supported.
[¶ 81] Assuming the Town had established a compelling interest in the protection of its youth and in maintaining the peace, we would nonetheless find the TRO unconstitutional. The Town has not met its burden of establishing that the TRO ban was necessary to serve the Town's interest and that less restrictive measures would not have been adequate. [¶ 82] Our first concern is with the geographical scope of the TRO. It prohibited OSA from displaying its graphic posters not just in the Town Square, but also on the streets and sidewalks two blocks in each direction of the park. This is a broader buffer zone than the Supreme Court has approved even when the restriction creating the buffer zone is content-neutral and thus subjected to a less demanding level of scrutiny. See Sclienck, 519 U.S. 357, 117 S.Ct. 855 (upholding content-neutral buffer zone of fifteen feet from clinic entrance to allow patients to freely enter and exit clinic, but overturning floating fifteen-foot buffer zone around patients as too restrictive of free speech rights); Madsen, 512 U.S. at 769-75, 114 S.Ct. at 2527-30 (upholding 36-foot content-neutral buffer zone around clinic, but overturning 300-foot content-neutral buffer zone around staff residences as too broad even though targeted picketing of personal residences is less protected and the government's interest in protecting the privacy of a residence is an interest of the highest order). [¶ 83] We find an Eighth Circuit decision holding unconstitutional a content-neutral ordinance that banned protesting within fifty feet of church property thirty minutes before or after scheduled services or events to be instructive. Olmer v. City of Lincoln, 192 F.3d 1176 (8th Cir.1999). In that case, the court reasoned as follows: The question is whether the ordinance is a narrowly tailored effort to protect the legitimate interest identified by the District Court. The answer is plainly no. The ordinance purports to make the carrying of signs at the indicated times and places unlawful, no matter what the signs say or depict, and this prohibition is much broader than necessary to protect the psychological interest of young children as found by the District Court. Moreover, the ordinance prohibits communication with adults as well as with children. While most of the adults attending the Westminster Presbyterian Church probably do not like the signs and disagree with them, that is hardly a sufficient basis, under the First Amendment, to justify what the City is attempting to do here. Expressive communication is frequently upsetting, even abrasive. The protection of such robust debate is at the core of the First Amendment. Finally, the ordinance bans certain forms of communication even if all of those to whom it is directed in fact wish to hear it. In sum, the ordinance bans speech directed at adults, and is not narrowly tailored to prohibit only that sort of speech that would be psychologically damaging to children. For further elaboration, see [Olmer v. City of Lincoln], 23 F.Supp.2d [1091], at 1100-1102 [ (D.Neb.1998) ]. The City also claims that it has a legitimate interest in preserving the right of its citizens to exercise their religion freely. Such an interest, in the abstract, is undoubtedly substantial and important. If, for example, anti-abortion protestors were to attempt to enter a church without permission, or to interrupt church services with their own speech, the city could doubtless prosecute them under a general trespass or disturbing-the-peace provision, or, if necessary, adopt a more specific prohibition directed against disturbing or interrupting services of worship. The present ordinance goes way beyond that. It goes beyond the church building and church property, and seeks to forbid peaceful communication on property belonging to the public, even though the communication may be completely truthful, and even though there is absolutely no physical interference with access to the church. Olmer, 192 F.3d at 1180-81. [¶ 84] As in Olmer, the Town has not shown that the breadth of the TRO, prohibiting the displays by the OSA within two blocks in any direction from the Town Square, was necessary to serve the Town's interest of protecting its children from disturbing images. The same is true of the Town's interest in maintaining the peace. The Town has not shown that intervention by law enforcement, as was used in the one instance of violence cited by the Town, is not adequate to maintain the peace. See Grider v. Abramson, 994 F.Supp. 840, 845 (W.D.Ky. 1998) (employing police procedures to address concerns of violence between competing rallies). [¶ 85] In the absence of this required showing, the Town has not met its burden under the strict scrutiny analysis. [2]