Opinion ID: 75672
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Effect of Amendment to Section 22-9

Text: 42 We initially consider the effect of the City's amendment of Section 22-9 on this appeal because the case-or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings, trial and appellate, Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 477 (1990). Indeed, a case is moot when the issues presented are no longer 'live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome. City of Erie v. Pap's A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 287 (2000) (citations and quotations omitted). 43 This Court has addressed frequently the familiar intersection of mootness analysis and post-judgment alterations to legislative enactments. Such alterations do not automatically strip federal courts of viable cases. Instead, post-judgment alterations may moot a case to the extent they remove certain challenged features, but do not moot a case if they leave other challenged features substantially undisturbed. See Coalition for the Abolition of Marijuana Prohibition v. City of Atlanta, 219 F.3d 1301, 1313 (11th Cir. 2000) (rejecting suggestion of mootness when challenged portions of now-amended ordinance have not been sufficiently altered so as to eliminate the issues raised); see also Butler v. Alabama Judicial Inquiry Comm'n, 261 F.3d 1154, 1158 (11th Cir. 2001) (finding challenge to ethical canon to be live despite subsequent modification because pending controversy remained as to narrowed canon); Naturist Soc'y, Inc. v. Fillyaw, 958 F.2d 1515, 1520 (11th Cir. 1992) (holding amendment to challenged park regulations did not moot case because [w]here a superseding statute leaves objectionable features of the prior law substantially undisturbed and challenged aspects remain essentially as they were before the amendments, the case is not moot). 8 44 Our decision in Coalition is particularly instructive regarding how and when subsequent legislative activity does not moot an appeal. In Coalition, the district court found portions of a festival permit ordinance unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement, but did not address all aspects of the plaintiffs' arguments. 219 F.3d at 1306-08. While on appeal, the defendant city repealed the ordinance and purported to correct those portions of it that the district court found unconstitutional and make clearer the remaining portions of the festival ordinance. Id. at 1309. This Court concluded the appeal was not moot even though the ordinance was superseded because: 45 the superseding statute or regulation moots a case only to the extent that it removes challenged features of the prior law. To the extent that those features remain in place, and changes in the law have not so fundamentally altered the statutory framework as to render the original controversy a mere abstraction, the case is not moot. 46 Id. at 1310 (quoting Fillyaw, 958 F.2d at 1520). In Coalition, we examined whether the new ordinance leaves objectionable features of the prior law substantially undisturbed and has not sufficiently altered [the statute] so as to present a substantially different controversy. Id. at 1311 (quotations and citations omitted). This Court determined that the city's amendments do narrow the scope of events which will be governed by the new ordinance, however, they do not substantially alter assertions that the challenged provision was an impermissibly content-based regulation not narrowly tailored to foster a legitimate government interest. Id. at 1314. It is reasonable to expect that the alleged constitutional violations resulting from the enforcement of the [first version of the ordinance] will continue with the enforcement of the [new version]. Id. at 1315. Thus, this Court proceeded to review the merits of the injunction. Id. 47 Applying our precedent, we conclude that the City's amendment to Section 22-9 did not so fundamentally alter either its statutory framework or the gravamen of Horton's fundamental challenges as to render the original controversy moot. Instead, Ordinance 2000-41 left in place both the statutory framework and the bulk of the language of Section 22-9 as enacted by Ordinance 2000-03. The majority of Horton's challenges to Section 22-9 remain alive and unresolved. 48 Although Ordinance 2000-41 deleted certain language criticized by the district court as impermissibly vague, Horton's vagueness challenge was not limited to the areas of Section 22-9 excised by Ordinance 2000-41. For example, Horton challenged the terms acting, singing, playing musical instruments, pantomime, mime, magic [and] dancing in the definition of perform as all vague. Horton also argued below and on appeal that (a) Section 22-9 fails to contain a mens rea requirement so that a person singing ... for personal enjoyment not intending to perform for the public might violate the ordinance, and (b) [i]ts definitions are not narrowly defined and it fails to provide notice of what the City forbids with the requisite specificity. 49 The correctness of the district court's wholesale conclusion that Section 22-9 and its definition of perform was vague remains a live controversy. Indeed, the list of specific activities in Section 22-9's definition of perform remains substantively unchanged. These challenged terms, such as singing, acting, and dancing, were undefined at the time of the district court's ruling and remain so now. Likewise, Horton's argument that the law is impermissibly vague because it lacked a mens rea requirement remains as current now as it did the day he filed suit. These vagueness issues were not mooted by Ordinance 2000-41. 50 In addition to vagueness issues, Horton raised myriad arguments, catalogued above, regarding the overbreadth of the terms in Section 22-9 and the invalidity of its time, place, and manner restrictions. For example, Horton challenges whether the City's interest in regulating safety, noise, and congestion adequately justifies the enacted regulation, whether Section 22-9 is impermissibly underinclusive in its scope, and whether it is narrowly tailored when it restricts all performances, including those with personal instruments such as a harmonica or kazoo, in a four-block area twenty four hours a day. That a live controversy remains is made clear by the fact that Horton incorporated all of his relevant prior challenges to Section 22-9 into his Supplemental Complaint aimed at Section 22-9 as amended. 51 Our conclusion that this appeal is not moot is also reinforced by prudential concerns. The City amended Section 22-9 but prefers to return to the broader, unamended version of Section 22-9. Given the City's history of legislating repeatedly in an effort to curb activity on St. George Street, 9 we conclude the activity is likely to recur, and the City's election to amend Section 22-9 in part does not remove our power to hear its case. See Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000) 10 ; City of Mesquite, 455 U.S. at 289 & n.11 (concluding appeal not moot because repeal of the objectionable language would not preclude [the city] from reenacting precisely the same provision if the District Court's judgment were vacated and noting the city has announced just such an intention at oral argument); Dow Jones & Co., Inc. v. Kaye, 256 F.3d 1251, 1256 (11th Cir. 2001) (recognizing exception to mootness doctrine when there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again) (quotation and citation omitted). 52 After pausing for the requisite mootness analysis, we conclude that although Section 22-9 was amended, the gravamen of Horton's trio of major constitutional complaints vagueness, overbreadth, and invalid time, place, and manner restrictions about the street performance restrictions are nearly identical, unresolved, and not fundamentally altered, as Horton himself admits in his Supplemental Complaint. Section 22-9 as originally enacted and Section 22-9 as amended are fundamentally similar. Moreover, the City requests the ability to enforce Section 22-9, as originally enacted by Ordinance 2000-03, because of its broader language. Thus, a live controversy remains, which we now resolve.