Court Opinion

ID: 9462989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:55:32.762804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:53.136759
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Petitioner was convicted of violating an ordinance which, as the majority opinion recognizes and appellees concede, is unconstitutionally over-broad not only on its face, but also as it was construed by the state court of appeals when it heard petitioner’s appeal in 1973. I do not think that the “presumption of regularity” can be stretched far enough to support the majority’s holding that the municipal court judge gave an instruction at petitioner’s trial in 1972 that was limited to fighting words as required by the Constitution. I find it impossible to presume that the municipal judge anticipated by almost three years the construction given in 1974 to a similar ordinance by the state supreme court, which in 1973 had dismissed petitioner’s appeal sua sponte because “no substantial constitutional question exists herein.”
I would remand to permit the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine what instruction was given to the jury. If it cannot be established that the overbroad ordinance was given a narrowing instruction as required by the Constitution, I would grant the writ.