Opinion ID: 382295
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the abatement injunction

Text: 10 The statute permits a court to issue temporary and permanent injunctions against the maintenance of a nuisance. Wash.Rev.Code § 7.48.066. In reviewing this section, we are required to acknowledge that 11 the burden of supporting an injunction against future exhibition is even heavier than the burden of justifying the imposition of a criminal sanction for a past communication. 12 Vance, --- U.S. at ----, 100 S.Ct. at 1161. For the following reasons, we conclude that with respect to this section the heavy burden of justification has not been discharged. It constitutes an impermissible prior restraint. 13 First, the injunction may be issued if the allegations of the complaint are demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court.... Wash.Rev.Code § 7.48.066. No limits are set forth in the statute to confine the discretion of the court to issue the temporary abatement injunction. 14 Second, there is no assurance that there will occur the required prompt final judicial determination on the merits. Southeastern Promotions, 420 U.S. at 560, 95 S.Ct. at 1247. The provision allowing permissive consolidation of the trial on the merits with the hearing for the temporary injunction is inadequate since there is no assurance that such a consolidation will occur. The priority provision is likewise inadequate. Requiring that the moral nuisance action be scheduled for the first term of court, and giving priority over other cases except crimes, election contests, and injunctions, does not offer the assurance of a prompt final determination. Though the Supreme Court has set no precise limits on the period within which a final judicial determination must be made, in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 55, 85 S.Ct. 734, 737, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965), the Court suggested that four to six months was too long. See also Southeastern Promotions, 420 U.S. at 562, 95 S.Ct. at 1248. There is nothing in the Washington statute to assure that final decisions would be rendered in a shorter period. 15 Third, the injunction operates to prevent the sale or exhibition of named or unnamed films or publications in the future even though not yet declared obscene. Since a defense of nonobscenity presumably is unavailable at a trial for violation of an injunction, see Walker v. Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210 (1966), this type of prior restraint is more onerous and more objectionable than the threat of criminal sanctions after a film has been exhibited. Vance, --- U.S. at ----, 100 S.Ct. at 1161. 16 Fourth, the temporary injunction provision is not saved by the fact that it may be lifted if the owner/operator can show to the satisfaction of the judge that the nuisance has been abated. In addition to the imprecise standard given the court, the provision impermissibly shifts the burden of showing a lack of obscenity to the person operating the alleged nuisance. Both the burden of instituting proceedings and the burden of persuasion must rest on the censor. Southeastern, 420 U.S. at 560, 95 S.Ct. at 1247; Freedman, 380 U.S. at 58-59, 85 S.Ct. at 738-739. 17 The abatement injunction provision lacks sufficient safeguards to comply with the First Amendment. As the Court stated in Vance : 18 (T)he absence to any special safeguards governing the entry and review of orders restraining the exhibition of named or unnamed motion pictures, without regard to the context in which they are displayed, precludes the enforcement of these nuisance statutes against ... exhibitors. 19 --- U.S. at ----, 100 S.Ct. at 1162.