Opinion ID: 161267
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Capitol Square Review & Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995)

Text: 59 The plaintiffs are very critical of the district court's oral reference to Capitol Square Review & Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995). See Aplt. Br. at 9. In Pinette, the Court held that the State does not violate the Establishment Clause when, pursuant to a content-neutral policy, it permits a private party to display an unattended cross in a traditional public forum. 515 U.S. at 770. The Court noted that a State could impose reasonable, content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions in public fora, and noted in dicta that a ban on all unattended displays, which did not exist [in Pinette], might be one such restriction. Id. at 761. In this case, Ms. Wells and the FFRF claim that the Court indulged in a strained and incorrect reading of that dicta. Aplt. Br. at 9. Specifically, they allege that the court erroneously construed Pinette as overruling, by dicta, the Supreme Court's prior decisions in Ward and Perry. Aplt. Br. at 9. In addition, the plaintiffs object to the court's failure to explicitly conduct the time-place-manner analysis set out in Ward. Aplt. Br. at 8, 15. These arguments are unpersuasive. 60 First, it is well-established that we are free to affirm a district court decision on any grounds for which there is a record sufficient to permit conclusions of law, even grounds not relied upon by the district court. United States v. Sandia, 188 F.3d 1215, 1217 (10th Cir. 1999) (quotations and citation omitted). Upon de novo review, we conclude that the unattended display ban is a valid time-place-manner restriction, and the district court's discussion of the various opinions in Pinette hardly displaces our analysis. In any case, we find no error in the court's reference to Pinette. The relevant language in Justice Scalia's majority opinion -- joined, in pertinent part, by six other justices -- hypothesized that an unattended display ban might be an example of a valid time-place-manner restriction. Pinette, 515 U.S. at 761. 10 The district court in this case consistently referred to the relevant language as dicta. E.g., Aplt. App. at 116 (Capitol Square indicates there can be a ban on all unattended displays. It did not occur in that case, so it's dicta . . . .); see also id. at 137-138. Taking the Pinette Court's suggestion as a starting point, the court then concluded that the policy before it was, in fact, a valid time-place-manner restriction. In our view, the court did conduct a time-place-manner analysis, despite its failure to say whatever magic words the plaintiffs were looking for. 61