Opinion ID: 416443
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Scope of the First Amendment

Text: 18 The scope of the first amendment's protection of free expression is not as amenable to precise definition as the Park Service's prohibition of camping. The Supreme Court has afforded first amendment scrutiny to government regulation of such expressive activities as demonstrating, 7 marching, 8 leafletting, 9 picketing, 10 wearing armbands, 11 and affixing a peace symbol to an American flag. 12 Although we acknowledge that all conduct need not be labelled speech merely because the doer intends thereby to express an idea, United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1678, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968), we also recognize that expressive conduct cannot be written out of the Constitution merely because the government may wish to label it camping. The values implicit in the first amendment are too multifaceted to be subject to wooden categorizations. 13 19 In the present case, our evaluation of the government's ban on sleeping in symbolic structures is underscored by first amendment scrutiny because, as applied to CCNV's proposed demonstration, the government's ban will clearly affect expression: there can be no doubt that the sleeping proposed by CCNV is carefully designed to, and in fact will, express the demonstrators' message that homeless persons have nowhere else to go. The test used by the Supreme Court to determine whether conduct is sufficiently imbued with elements of communication to fall within the scope of the First ... Amendment[ ], Spence v. Washington, 418 U.S. 405, 409, 94 S.Ct. 2727, 2729, 41 L.Ed.2d 842 (1974) (per curiam), is to examine the intent of the would-be communicator and the context in which his or her conduct takes place. In Spence, for example, the Court held that displaying the American flag with an attached peace symbol in the context of demonstrations against the bombings of Cambodia and the Kent State killings: 20 was not an act of mindless nihilism. Rather, it was a pointed expression of anguish by appellant about the then-current domestic and foreign affairs of his government. An intent to convey a particularized message was present, and in the surrounding circumstances the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it. 21 Id. at 410-11, 94 S.Ct. at 2730-2731 (emphasis added). This court has already held that, within the context of an individual's round-the-clock vigil, sleeping could be taken as sufficiently expressive in nature to implicate First Amendment scrutiny in the first instance. Abney, 534 F.2d at 985. In the present case, within the context of a large demonstration with tents, placards, 14 and verbal explanations, 15 the communicative context is sufficiently clear that the participant's sleeping cannot be arbitrarily ruled out of the arena of expressive conduct. 16 22 Indeed, we cannot understand how the government can deny the indicia of political expression that permeate CCNV's pointed use of the simple act of sleeping. The protestors choose to sleep, purposely across from the White House and Capitol grounds, in sparsely appointed tents which the Park Service has already designated as undeniably symbolic. Their permit application states that this conduct is intended to send the same message as this court recognized was sent in CCNV's 1981-82 demonstration: that the problems of the homeless will not simply disappear into the night. 17 Unlike the thousands of homeless men and women whose nights are spent on grates, in doorways, or in back alleys, these demonstrators propose to sleep within the conspicuous context of two organized demonstration sites that create a backdrop--by the combined use of structures, explanatory signs, and verbal discourse--to ensure that the message sought to be sent by the demonstrators' conduct will, in all likelihood, be received. True, CCNV has devised a means of expression that also serves to provide the protestors with the luxury of a blanket and a bit of groundspace, within a tent, with which to pass a winter's night. But for those genuinely homeless persons who choose to forsake temporarily their grates and doorways for these tents, the communicative dimension of the sleeping in this demonstration is not overshadowed by the simultaneous provision of a single amenity. The first amendment is not so rarefied that it cannot accommodate within its scope the conduct of these demonstrators who use their bodies to express the poignancy of their plight. 23 We add, moreover, that even were we not to focus on the peculiarly expressive nature of sleeping, first amendment scrutiny would still be implicated. This conclusion stems from the fact that the protestors' purpose, whether asleep or awake, is to maintain a symbolic presence that makes more visible and concrete the results of [presidential and congressional] inaction on the conditions of the homeless. See CCNV application to demonstrate filed September 7, 1982, reprinted in RD 1, at 2. In short, the demonstrators seek to create an inescapable night-and-day reminder to the nation's political leadership that homeless persons exist. Given this undeniable intent, and the contextual fact that the demonstration will take place at the seat of our national government, it is clear that CCNV's proposed presence is intended to be expressive regardless of whether the demonstrators sit down, lie down, or even sleep during the course of the demonstration. Thus, whatever the particular form of the protestors' presence at night, their presence itself implicates the first amendment. In this respect, CCNV's twenty-four hour presence is entitled to the same first amendment protection as a vigil. Although not as small, stylized, or silent as the reproachful presence in Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 142, 86 S.Ct. 719, 724, 15 L.Ed.2d 637 (1965) (silent civil rights vigil in a segregated public library), it is identical in both concept and purpose to such conduct. See United States v. Abney, 534 F.2d 984 (D.C.Cir.1976) (sleeping as part of a vigil in Lafayette Square entitled to first amendment scrutiny in the first instance). 24 We wish to make clear, however, that by holding sleeping to be expressive conduct within the context of this particular demonstration, we reject two subsidiary arguments urged on us by CCNV. First, we reject CCNV's contention that sleeping in its demonstration is uniquely deserving of first amendment protection because it directly embodies the group's message that homeless people have no place else to sleep. 18 Under CCNV's distinction, a group with a no-place-to-sleep message (such as the homelessness of refugees) could express it by deliberately sleeping, but a group with a different message (such as opposition to the nuclear arms race) could not sleep. Such a distinction is impermissible, however, because it would require the government to draw distinctions among groups desiring to express themselves through sleeping depending on the subject matter or content of their message and its alleged relationship to sleep, something the first amendment is designed to prevent. See, e.g., Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 530, 536, 100 S.Ct. 2326, 2332, 65 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980); L. TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Sec. 12-2, at 580 (1978). Second, we also reject CCNV's argument that its sleeping must be protected because it is the most effective means by which the group can convey its message. 19 The first amendment does not guarantee individuals access to the most effective channels of communication. See, e.g., Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 47-48, 87 S.Ct. 242, 247-248, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 (1966). On the other hand, the fact that CCNV's manner of expression may turn out to be quite effective does not make it any the less speech. 20