Opinion ID: 1175747
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: content restrictions

Text: It is also my view that enjoining oral use of the words murder, kill and their derivatives in the presence of children under an identified age violates First Amendment rights of free speech. Because the injunction restricts the content of speech in advance of actual publication or broadcast, it constitutes a prior restraint. The United States Supreme Court held in Keefe, 402 U.S. at 419 that [a]ny prior restraint on expression comes to this Court with a `heavy presumption' against its constitutional validity. Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 556-59, 49 L.Ed.2d 683, 96 S.Ct. 2791 (1976). The primary reason for this heavy presumption of invalidity was articulated by the Court in Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 559, 43 L.Ed.2d 448, 95 S.Ct. 1239 (1975): [A] free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand. It is always difficult to know in advance what an individual will say, and the line between legitimate and illegitimate speech is often so finely drawn that the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable. The only basis upon which a prior restraint can be upheld is if the communication restrained is constitutionally unprotected speech such as obscenity, incitement to acts of violence, or speech that directly threatens military security. See Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 716, 75 L.Ed. 1357, 51 S.Ct. 625 (1931). The speech restrained by the majority here does not fall within any of these narrow categories. The only possible unprotected category under which the restrained words in these actions might fall is the category of words identified in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 86 L.Ed. 1031, 62 S.Ct. 766 (1942) as having no essential part of any exposition of ideas, ... and whose very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Contemporary applications of this doctrine prove that it is a very narrow exception to the rule that prior restraints are presumptively unconstitutional. In Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm'ty Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 508, 21 L.Ed.2d 731, 89 S.Ct. 733 (1969), the Court, overturning a restriction on wearing of armbands in school as a political protest, emphasized that undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression. Restraint of speech may not be constitutionally justified from a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. Tinker, at 509. See also NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 909-10, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215, 102 S.Ct. 3409 (1982); Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 29 L.Ed.2d 284, 91 S.Ct. 1780 (1971). The evidence fails to demonstrate any incitement to violence or other significant harm to the listeners. Significantly, the words proscribed play an important role in the exposition of ideas in the abortion debate. The combination of the absence of significant harm and the importance of the restricted words to the abortion debate dictates that the prior restraint cannot be constitutionally justified. While the majority finds that the doctor-patient relationship may be harmed by the use of such words, and that they may have some physical and psychological effect on young children, none of the evidence demonstrates an incitement to violence or a harm that was any greater than the kind of anger, agitation, embarrassment, and emotional turmoil that is the natural product of debate and the conflict of ideas deemed permissible in the cases discussed above. Further, the majority's command that the trial court provide guidelines for ascertaining when a child of susceptible age is present is an impossible task. I can conceive of no reasonable means of determining on casual meeting of a child on a sidewalk whether the child is 11 or 12 years of age. A prior restraint cannot be justified on such evidence. The words murder, kill, and their derivatives play an essential role in the debate concerning abortion. To those opposed to abortion, the logical conclusion of that moral position is that abortions result in babies being killed or murdered. If the court were to deprive picketers of the words which most clearly embody the moral position of those picketers, it would eviscerate completely the debate concerning abortion. Just as abortion proponents must be able to articulate their belief that abortion is constitutionally justified as an aspect of a woman's right to procreative freedom, see Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 44 L.Ed.2d 600, 95 S.Ct. 2222 (1975), so must abortion opponents be permitted to articulate their belief that abortion should not be permitted because it involves the taking of human life. There is no question that the use of words such as kill and murder caused some agitation and emotional turmoil. Such responses are an inevitable part of debate that lies at the very heart of freedom of speech. Those words embody and crystallize the position of antiabortion activists. Deprived of such words, antiabortion activists would be deprived of the right to carry their argument fully to the public. The worth of such words can only be evaluated in the commerce of ideas where they will be judged in relation to opposing arguments and ultimately either accepted or rejected. In sum, the restrictions on content in the injunction is an unconstitutional prior restraint, and the evidence presented in this case did not establish a narrow exception on the rule of presumptive unconstitutionality for such restraints.