Opinion ID: 1154947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: overbreadth and content-based regulation of speech

Text: [20-22] RCW 9A.36.080(1) regulates only criminal conduct and any effect that it has on speech is only incidental. RCW 9A.36.080(2), on the other hand, clearly regulates protected symbolic speech based on content. Any effect it has on regulating conduct is merely incidental. Subsection (2) is, therefore, unconstitutional. In defense of the regulation, the State argues that subsection (2) should be read in conjunction with subsection (1) thus requiring the prohibited symbolic speech be in combination with criminal conduct. However, as a general proposition, where the Legislature uses different language within the same statute, we presume that it intended to address different concerns. Automobile Drivers & Demonstrators Union Local 882 v. Department of Retirement Sys., 92 Wn.2d 415, 598 P.2d 379 (1979), appeal dismissed, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1040 (1980); Greenwood v. Department of Motor Vehicles, 13 Wn. App. 624, 536 P.2d 644, 98 A.L.R.3d 566 (1975). RCW 9A.36.080(1)(b)(i) and (ii) apply to situations where such symbolic speech is a part of the underlying assault, harassment, or malicious mischief. Under the State's reading of the statute, subsection (2)(a) would be repetitive and superfluous. It is clear, therefore, that the Legislature intended to criminalize cross burning and depiction of hate symbols per se. This is unconstitutional because symbolic hate speech, however offensive, is protected. R.A.V., 112 S.Ct. at 2548; Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 406, 105 L.Ed.2d 342, 109 S.Ct. 2533 (1989); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 23 L.Ed.2d 430, 89 S.Ct. 1827 (1969). In the alternative, the State argues that RCW 9A.36.080(2) is beyond constitutional scrutiny because it punishes only unprotected fighting words or words ... which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. at 572. The State asserts that fighting words are excluded from First Amendment protection. Chaplinsky, at 571-72. The State is correct. The Supreme Court has permitted content-based regulation of speech within certain well-defined categories of unprotected, low value speech. Police Dep't v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 33 L.Ed.2d 212, 92 S.Ct. 2286 (1972); Chaplinsky, at 571-72. Such categories of low value speech include, but are not limited to, obscenity, defamation, and fighting words. However, a finding that a category of speech, such as fighting words, has low First Amendment value does not mean that the speech is wholly without constitutional protection. If a regulation of low value speech is content based, the court applies the same stringent standard of review that it applies to all other content-based regulations. See Stone, Content Regulation and the First Amendment, 25 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 189, 197 (1983-1984). This general prohibition of content discrimination is premised on the danger that government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace by regulating content. R.A.V., 112 S.Ct. at 2545. Contrary to the State's assertions, however, subsection (2) falls squarely within the prohibitions of R.A.V. Like the St. Paul ordinance, RCW 9A.36.080(2) criminalizes symbolic speech that expresses disfavored viewpoints in an especially offensive manner. Even if construed to address only fighting words, as the Minnesota Supreme Court did with the St. Paul ordinance, the statute is still unconstitutional under the R.A.V., analysis because even fighting words may not be regulated based on their content. However objectionable, this speech is protected by article 1, section 5 of the Washington Constitution and the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. Mosley, at 97; O'Day, 109 Wn.2d at 802.