Opinion ID: 1408111
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendants' Constitutional Challenges to Provisions (a) and (k) of the Preliminary Injunction

Text: At this initial stage in the proceeding, the scope of our inquiry is narrow. (5) We review an order granting a preliminary injunction under an abuse of discretion standard. ( King v. Meese (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1217, 1227-1228 [240 Cal. Rptr. 829, 743 P.2d 889]; Cohen v. Board of Supervisors (1985) 40 Cal.3d 277, 286 [219 Cal. Rptr. 467, 707 P.2d 840].) Review is confined, in other words, to a consideration whether the trial court abused its discretion in `evaluat[ing] two interrelated factors when deciding whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction. The first is the likelihood that the plaintiff will prevail on the merits at trial. The second is the interim harm that the plaintiff is likely to sustain if the injunction were denied as compared to the harm the defendant is likely to suffer if the preliminary injunction were issued.' ( Cohen v. Board of Supervisors, supra, 40 Cal.3d at p. 286.) And although we will not ordinarily disturb the trial court's ruling absent a showing of abuse, an order granting or denying interlocutory relief reflects nothing more than the superior court's evaluation of the controversy on the record before it at the time of its ruling; it is not an adjudication of the ultimate merits of the dispute. ( Ibid. ; see also Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, Inc. v. Williams (1994) 7 Cal.4th 860, 879, fn. 10 [30 Cal. Rptr.2d 629, 873 P.2d 1224]; Continental Baking Co. v. Katz (1968) 68 Cal.2d 512, 527 [67 Cal. Rptr. 761, 439 P.2d 889].)

(6a) The Court of Appeal held that paragraph (a) of the preliminary injunction, enjoining defendants from Standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view with any other defendant ... or with any other known `VST' (Varrio Sureno Town or Varrio Sureno Treces) or `VSL' (Varrio Sureno Locos) member (italics added) was invalid on associational grounds; that is, the provision infringed defendants' right to associate with fellow gang members, a right protected by the First Amendment. We disagree. In a series of opinions, the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that, although the Constitution recognizes and shields from government intrusion a limited right of association, it does not recognize a generalized right of `social association.' ( Dallas v. Stanglin (1989) 490 U.S. 19, 25 [109 S.Ct. 1591, 1594, 104 L.Ed.2d 18].) As we explain, neither does the First Amendment protect the collective public activities of the gang members within the four-block precinct of Rocksprings, activities directed in the main at trafficking in illegal drugs and securing control of the community through systematic acts of intimidation and violence. (7) The high court has identified two kinds of associations entitled to First Amendment protection  those with an intrinsic or intimate value, and those that are instrumental to forms of religious and political expression and activity. Of the first, the court has said that it is central to any concept of liberty and is exemplified by personal affiliations that attend the creation and sustenance of a family  marriage ...; the raising and education of children [citation]; and cohabitation with one's relatives. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees (1984) 468 U.S. 609, 619 [104 S.Ct. 3244, 3250, 82 L.Ed.2d 462].) Such affiliations, the court has remarked, involve deep attachments and commitments to the necessarily few other individuals with whom one shares not only a special community of thoughts, experiences, and beliefs but also distinctively personal aspects of one's life. Among other things... they are distinguished by such attributes as relative smallness, a high degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship. ( Id. at p. 620 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3250].) The second kind of association that merits First Amendment protection is composed of groups whose members join together for the purpose of pursuing a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees, supra, 468 U.S. at p. 622 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3252].) This instrumental right of protected association is directly related to the individual's freedom to speak, to worship, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances because without it these liberties themselves could scarcely exist, much less thrive. ( Ibid. ) (6b) It is evident that whatever else it may be in other contexts, the street gang's conduct in Rocksprings at issue in this case fails to qualify as either of the two protected forms of association. Manifestly, in its activities within the four-block area of Rocksprings, the gang is not an association of individuals formed  for the purpose of engaging in protected speech or religious activities. ( Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int'l v. Rotary Club (1987) 481 U.S. 537, 544 [107 S.Ct. 1940, 1945, 95 L.Ed.2d 474], italics added.) Without minimizing the value of the gang to its members as a loosely structured, elective form of social association, that characteristic is in itself insufficient to command constitutional protection, at least within the circumscribed area of Rocksprings. As the court pointed out in Dallas v. Stanglin, supra, 490 U.S. at page 25 [109 S.Ct. at page 1594], [i]t is possible to find some kernel of expression in almost every activity a person undertakes  for example, walking down the street or meeting one's friends at a shopping mall  but such a kernel is not sufficient to bring the activity within the protection of the First Amendment. Defendants contend that if there is any doubt that association with other gang members is afforded constitutional protection, the Supreme Court put the notion to rest in Dawson v. Delaware (1992) 503 U.S. 159 ... where it held that association with a prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood, is constitutionally protected. This argument misreads the court's opinion in Dawson. There, the court reversed a penalty jury's capital verdict on the ground that an abbreviated stipulation of the parties  reciting that the `Aryan Brotherhood refers to a white racist prison gang' which originated in California in the 1960's `and now exist[s] in many state prisons including Delaware'  lacked any relevance to the capital sentencing issue before the jury. ( Dawson v. Delaware (1992) 503 U.S. 159, 162, 165 [112 S.Ct. 1093, 1096, 1097-1098, 117 L.Ed.2d 309].) Far from holding that association with a prison gang ... is constitutionally protected, the vice condemned by the court in Dawson was the very narrowness of the stipulation [that] left the Aryan Brotherhood evidence totally without relevance to Dawson's sentencing proceeding. ( Id. at p. 165.) Nor do the circumstances in this case implicate the other associational form worthy of First Amendment protection  personal affiliations whose characteristics include relative smallness, a high degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship. ( Roberts v. United States Jaycees, supra, 468 U.S. at p. 620 [104 S.Ct. at p. 3250].) We may assume the members of defendants' gang share common values and that group membership and the affiliations it engenders can be a source of personal enrichment to some or all of them. Defendants' organization may thus share one or two of the characteristics that define intrinsically valuable and constitutionally protected associations, lying somewhere this side of the anonymity of the Jaycees or a teenage dance hall. The constitutionally significant factors on which associational protection depends, however, are not ones to be mechanically applied and ticked off. At bottom, protected rights of association in the intimate sense are those existing along a narrow band of affiliations that permit deep and enduring personal bonds to flourish, inculcating and nourishing civilization's fundamental values, against which even the state is powerless to intrude. Freedom of association, in the sense protected by the First Amendment, does not extend to joining with others for the purpose of depriving third parties of their lawful rights. ( Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) 512 U.S. 753, 776 [114 S.Ct. 2516, 2530, 129 L.Ed.2d 593] (hereafter Madsen ).) We do not, in short, believe that the activities of the gang and its members in Rocksprings at issue here are either private or intimate as constitutionally defined; the fact that defendants may exercise some discrimination in choosing associates [by a] selective process of inclusion and exclusion ( New York State Club Assn. v. New York City (1988) 487 U.S. 1, 13 [108 S.Ct. 2225, 2234, 101 L.Ed.2d 1], italics added) does not mean that the association or its activities in Rocksprings is one that commands protection under the First Amendment.
(8a) The Court of Appeal also invalidated paragraph (a) of the trial court's preliminary decree on the ground that these provisions were overbroad, as that term has come to be understood and applied in the context of First Amendment litigation. It acknowledged that the reach of the overbreadth doctrine has been cabined in a series of high court opinions, e.g., New York State Club Assn. v. New York City, supra, 487 U.S. at page 11 [108 S.Ct. at page 2233] (doctrine is a narrow exception and requires finding of `a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court'); Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973) 413 U.S. 601, 613 [93 S.Ct. 2908, 2916, 37 L.Ed.2d 830] (overbreadth doctrine is strong medicine that is used sparingly and only as a last resort); and Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) 508 U.S. 476, 487-488 [113 S.Ct. 2194, 2201, 124 L.Ed.2d 436]. However, it did not consider one crucial fact: No one, apart from defendants themselves, is or can be subject to the prophylactic relief granted by the trial court. (9) As we explain, the foundation of the overbreadth doctrine is the inhibitory effect a contested statute may exert on the freedom of those who, although possibly subject to its reach, are not before the court. It is out of a generous concern for a statute's effects on the activities of such third persons that the high court has permitted facial challenges on behalf of those who are not parties to the litigation. Thus, even litigants whose activities are not constrained by the statute at issue and who might, as the court wrote of the permit requirement in Thornhill v. Alabama (1940) 310 U.S. 88, 97 [60 S.Ct. 736, 742, 84 L.Ed. 1093], have had a license for the asking may ... call into question the whole scheme of licensing when ... prosecuted for failure to procure it. Defendants do not attack the public nuisance statute itself, claiming that it suffers from the vice of overbreadth; instead, they attack the terms of the interlocutory decree as being unconstitutionally overbroad. The source of the high court's concern in the overbreadth cases, however, and the foundation of the doctrine itself, is the perceived danger to the constitutionally protected interests of those who, because they are not before the court, lack a judicial forum in which to litigate claims that a statute sweeps within its ambit other activities that in ordinary circumstances constitute an exercise of freedom of speech ( Thornhill v. Alabama, supra, 310 U.S. at p. 97 [60 S.Ct. at p. 742]), and thus may inhibit the constitutionally protected speech of [such] third parties ( City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent (1984) 466 U.S. 789, 798 [104 S.Ct. 2118, 2125, 80 L.Ed.2d 772]). It is the absent members of this unrepresented class who, sensitive to the perils posed by ... indefinite language, avoid the risk ... by restricting their conduct to that which is unquestionably safe ( Baggett v. Bullitt (1964) 377 U.S. 360, 372 [84 S.Ct. 1316, 1323, 12 L.Ed.2d 377]) for whom the overbreadth doctrine was fashioned. (See also Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 612 [93 S.Ct. at p. 2916] [Litigants, therefore, are permitted to challenge a statute not because their own rights of free expression are violated, but because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute's very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.]; In re M.S. (1995) 10 Cal.4th 698, 709 [42 Cal. Rptr.2d 355, 896 P.2d 1365] [litigants may challenge a statute not because their own rights of free expression are violated, but because the very existence of an overbroad statute may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected expression].) (8b) The high court recently identified a related and constitutionally significant difference between injunctions and statutes in the context of protected speech claims. In Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753, the court pointed out that the narrow and particularized focus inherent in the nature of the injunction as an equitable remedy is also significant in evaluating the contention that features of a given decree suffer from constitutional overbreadth. Like the injunction in Madsen, the trial court's interlocutory decree here does not embody the broad and abstract commands of a statute. Instead, it is the product of a concrete judicial proceeding prompted by particular events  inimical to the well-being of the residents of the community of Rocksprings  that led to a specific request by the City for preventive relief. As with any injunction, the preliminary decree here is addressed to identifiable parties and to specific circumstances; the enjoined acts are particularly described in the trial court's order. Unlike the pervasive chill of an abstract statutory command that may broadly affect the conduct of an absent class and induce self-censorship, the decree here did not issue until after these defendants had had their day in court, a procedure that assures `a prompt and carefully circumscribed determination of the issue.' ( Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown (1957) 354 U.S. 436, 442 [77 S.Ct. 1325, 1328, 1 L.Ed.2d 1469].) In short, as one commentator has pointed out, An injunction may be more effective at stopping the activity at which it is aimed, but it is also more narrowly confined. There is less risk of deterring activities beyond the adjudicated target of suppression  activities plainly outside the injunctive ban but arguably within the necessarily more general prohibition of a penal law. (Jeffries, Rethinking Prior Restraint (1983) 92 Yale L.Rev. 409, 429.) Manifestly, the paradigm for an overbreadth challenge is not present in this case. Here there is no possibility that the concerns motivating the high court in its classic overbreadth opinions  the chilling effect of abstract, broadly framed statutes on the conduct of those not before the court (see, e.g., Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965) 380 U.S. 479, 487 [85 S.Ct. 1116, 1121, 14 L.Ed.2d 22])  could place at risk any protected conduct other than that of defendants themselves. The only individuals subject to the trial court's interlocutory decree in this case, including those features contested as overbroad, are named parties to this action; their activities allegedly protected by the First Amendment have been and are being aggressively litigated. There is accordingly no basis, legal or factual, for the professed concern that protected speech or communicative conduct by anyone other than defendants might be endangered by the terms of the trial court's injunction. In that sense, defendants' claim of overbreadth, made with respect to paragraph (a) of the preliminary injunction, is not cognizable. Our conclusion with respect to defendants' overbreadth claim does not mean they may not be heard to complain that the provisions of the preliminary injunction  as applied to them and their conduct in Rocksprings  are broader than constitutionally sustainable. Rather, in this case that contention falls under the standard formulated by the court in Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753  the requirement that the superior court's decree burden no more of defendants' speech than necessary to serve the significant governmental interest at stake. We will consider that distinct claim separately, when we come to evaluate the sufficiency of the injunction under the standard announced by the court in Madsen. (See, post, at pp. 1119-1122.)
We consider next the claim of defendants that provisions (a) and (k) of the interlocutory injunction are void for vagueness. (See, e.g., Note, The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine In the Supreme Court (1960) 109 U. Pa. L.Rev. 67.) Here again, the Court of Appeal was persuaded of the merits of defendants' constitutional challenge to the preliminary decree, ruling that provisions (a) and (k) were unconstitutionally vague and thus unenforceable. Although, as we pointed out in Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1069, 1109 [40 Cal. Rptr.2d 402, 892 P.2d 1145], [t]he concepts of vagueness and overbreadth are related, there are important differences. A clear and precise enactment may nevertheless be `overbroad' if in its reach it prohibits constitutionally protected conduct. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) 408 U.S. 104, 114 [92 S.Ct. 2294, 2302, 33 L.Ed.2d 222], fn. omitted.) (10) Unlike the doctrine of overbreadth, which focuses on the impact of a statute on the conduct of persons not before the court, the claim that a law is unconstitutionally vague is not dependent on the interests of absent third parties. Instead, the underlying concern is the core due process requirement of adequate notice. No one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids. ( Lanzetta v. New Jersey (1939) 306 U.S. 451, 453 [59 S.Ct. 618, 619, 83 L.Ed. 888], fn. omitted; see also People v. Heitzman (1994) 9 Cal.4th 189, 199-200 [37 Cal. Rptr.2d 236, 886 P.2d 1229].) The operative corollary is that a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law. ( Connally v. General Construction Co. (1926) 269 U.S. 385, 391 [46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322].) In its more recent applications of the vagueness doctrine, the high court has also expressed a concern for the potential for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement inherent in vague statutes. (See, e.g., Smith v. Goguen (1974) 415 U.S. 566, 574 [94 S.Ct. 1242, 1248, 39 L.Ed.2d 605] [We recognize that in a noncommercial context behavior as a general rule is not mapped out in advance on the basis of statutory language. In such cases, perhaps the most meaningful aspect of the vagueness doctrine is not actual notice, but the other principal element of the doctrine  the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement. (Fn. omitted.)]; Kolender v. Lawson (1983) 461 U.S. 352, 357 [103 S.Ct. 1855, 1858, 75 L.Ed.2d 903] [doctrine seeks to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.].) Thus, a law that is void for vagueness not only fails to provide adequate notice to those who must observe its strictures, but also impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, 408 U.S. at pp. 108-109 [92 S.Ct. at pp. 2298-2299], fn. omitted.) The scope of permissible challenges to a law based on grounds of vagueness differs in another important respect from challenges based on overbreadth. While a claim of overbreadth may succeed if it is shown that the law at issue is substantially overbroad, that is, affects more than a marginal group of those potentially subject to its sweep ( Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 615 [93 S.Ct. at p. 2918]), a claim that a law is unconstitutionally vague can succeed only where the litigant demonstrates, not that it affects a substantial number of others, but that the law is vague as to her or impermissibly vague in all of its applications.  ( Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates (1982) 455 U.S. 489, 497-498 [102 S.Ct. 1186, 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d 362], italics added; see also Parker v. Levy (1974) 417 U.S. 733, 755-757 [94 S.Ct. 2547, 2561-2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439]; Tribe, American Constitutional Law (2d ed. 1988) § 12-32, p. 1036.) (11) We begin our consideration of defendants' vagueness claims with a pair of principles endorsed by the United States Supreme Court as reliable guides for applying the doctrine in particular cases. The first principle is derived from the concrete necessity that abstract legal commands must be applied in a specific context. A contextual application of otherwise unqualified legal language may supply the clue to a law's meaning, giving facially standardless language a constitutionally sufficient concreteness. Indeed, in evaluating challenges based on claims of vagueness, the court has said [t]he particular context is all important. ( Communications Assn. v. Douds (1950) 339 U.S. 382, 412 [70 S.Ct. 674, 691, 94 L.Ed. 925].) We recently made the same point in Tobe v. City of Santa Ana, supra, 9 Cal.4th at page 1107, when we said the Court of Appeal erred in holding that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague. The terms which the Court of Appeal considered vague are not so when the purpose clause of the ordinance is considered and the terms are read in that context as they should be. (Italics added.) This observation is particularly apropos here. The second guiding principle is the notion of  reasonable specificity ( Coates v. City of Cincinnati (1971) 402 U.S. 611, 614 [91 S.Ct. 1686, 1688, 29 L.Ed.2d 214], italics added) or `[ r ] easonable certainty.' ( People v. Victor (1965) 62 Cal.2d 280, 300 [42 Cal. Rptr. 199, 398 P.2d 391], italics added; see also In re Marriage of Walton (1972) 28 Cal. App.3d 108, 116 [104 Cal. Rptr. 472] [statute will not be held void for vagueness if any reasonable and practical construction can be given its language or if its terms may be made reasonably certain by reference to other definable sources].) As the high court has pointed out, few words possess the precision of mathematical symbols, most statutes must deal with untold and unforeseen variations in factual situations, and the practical necessities of discharging the business of government inevitably limit the specificity with which legislators can spell out prohibitions. Consequently, no more than a reasonable degree of certainty can be demanded. Nor is it unfair to require that one who deliberately goes perilously close to an area of proscribed conduct shall take the risk that he may cross the line. ( Boyce Motor Lines v. United States (1952) 342 U.S. 337, 340 [72 S.Ct. 329, 330-331, 96 L.Ed. 367].) In short, [c]ondemned to the use of words, we can never expect mathematical certainty from our language. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, 408 U.S. at p. 110 [92 S.Ct. at p. 2300], fn. omitted.) (12) In the Court of Appeal's view, provision (a)'s prohibition against associating with any other known `VST' ... or `VSL' ... member might apply to a circumstance in which a defendant was engaged in one of the prohibited activities with someone known to the police but not known to him to be a gang member. According to the Court of Appeal, such indefiniteness presented a classic case of vagueness. We agree that in such a hypothetical case, the City would have to establish a defendant's own knowledge of his associate's gang membership to meet its burden of proving conduct in violation of the injunction. Far from being a classic instance of constitutional vagueness, however, we think the element of knowledge is fairly implied in the decree. To the extent that it might not be, we are confident that the trial court will, as the Court of Appeal did in People v. Garcia (1993) 19 Cal. App.4th 97, 103 [23 Cal. Rptr.2d 340], impose such a limiting construction on paragraph (a) by inserting a knowledge requirement should an attempt be made to enforce that paragraph of the injunction. With that minor emendation, the text of provision (a) passes scrutiny under the vagueness doctrine. (13) The Court of Appeal found paragraph (k), enjoining defendants from confronting, intimidating, annoying, harassing, threatening, challenging, provoking, assaulting and/or battering any residents or patrons, or visitors to `Rocksprings' ... known to have complained about gang activities, impermissibly vague in two respects. First, like paragraph (a), it speaks of persons known to have complained about gang activities, without indicating how or even whether a defendant is to be charged with this knowledge. The discussion with respect to the knowledge requirement of provision (a) of the decree applies equally to this provision and, so construed, it too passes muster. Second, according to the Court of Appeal, provision (k) fails to define sufficiently the words confront, annoy, provoke, challenge, or harass; it thus fails to provide a standard of conduct for those whose activities are proscribed. Yet similar words were upheld against claims of vagueness by the Supreme Court in Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753. There, the high court affirmed injunctive relief prohibiting petitioners from engaging in similar  if not more broadly phrased  conduct: `intimidating, harassing, touching, pushing, shoving, crowding or assaulting persons entering or leaving.' ( Id. at pp. 760-761 [114 S.Ct. at p. 2522].) We find nothing in the context of this case, factually similar in many respects to the situation before the court in Madsen, that makes the same words, sufficiently definite there, somehow constitutionally infirm here. Here again, [t]he particular context is all important. ( Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, 339 U.S. 382, 412 [70 S.Ct. 674, 691].) The words of provision (k) which the Court of Appeal considered irretrievably vague are simply not, at least in the constitutional sense, when the objectives of the injunction are considered and the words of the provision are read in context. Finally, the declarations filed by the City in support of preliminary relief leave little doubt as to what kind of conduct the decree seeks to enjoin. One Rocksprings resident recounted an incident in which gang members had threatened to cut out the tongue of her nine-year-old daughter if she talked to the police; she stated that other residents had been threatened as well. Another resident reported her neighbor's property had been vandalized and the resident threatened after complaining to police that gang members had urinated in her garage. A police officer declared Rocksprings residents had told him gang members confront and threaten them with physical violence when asked to leave residential property. Others refused to furnish declarations, fearing for their lives if any gang member should discover their identities. We conclude neither of the two provisions should have been invalidated by the Court of Appeal on vagueness grounds.