Court Opinion

ID: 9430707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:22.756954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.887326
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
Respondent Cloud Books, Inc., has a bookstore that sells sexually explicit, but not allegedly obscene, publications. See People ex rel. Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., 65 N. Y. 2d 324, 326, 480 N. E. 2d 1089, 1091 (1985); see also ante, at 698. The Court holds that the store can be shut down for one year as a nuisance if it is found to be a place "in or upon which any lewdness, assignation, or prostitution . . . exists,” in violation of New York’s Public Health Law §§2320 and 2329 (McKinney 1985). Despite the obvious role that commercial bookstores play in facilitating free expression, see, e. g., Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150 (1959), the Court today concludes that a closure order would raise no First Amendment concerns, apparently because it would be triggered, not by respondents’ sale of books, but by the non-*709expressive conduct of patrons. See ante, at 698-699, and 706, n. 2. But the First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, protects against all laws “abridging the freedom of speech” — not just those specifically directed at expressive activity. Until today, this Court has never suggested that a State may suppress speech as much as it likes, without justification, so long as it does so through generally applicable regulations that have “nothing to do with any expressive conduct.” See ante, at 705-706, n. 2.
To the contrary, the Court has said repeatedly that a statute challenged under the First Amendment “must be tested by its operation and effect.” Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 708 (1931). See also Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452 U. S. 61, 68 (1981); Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546, 552 (1975). “In every case, therefore, where legislative abridgment of [First Amendment] rights is asserted, the courts should be astute to examine the effect of the challenged legislation.” Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161 (1939).
Generally applicable statutes that purport to regulate non-speech repeatedly have been struck down if they unduly penalize speech, political or otherwise. See, e. g., Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946) (trespass); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940) (breach of peace); Schneider v. State, supra (littering). Cf. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 107-108 (1972) (antinoise ordinance).
The legislation in Marsh, Cantwell, and Schneider, as in this case, did not attempt to censor particular speech, cf. Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, supra, or to burden disproportionately a particular speaker, cf. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm’r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575 (1983). The State’s concern there, as here, was to preserve the character of the community through the exercise of police power. And state action was triggered not by the speech itself, but by conduct. In Cantwell, for example, the Court *710pointed out that the speech itself “invaded no right or interest of the public.” 310 U. S., at 309. Rather, the rage of the listeners led to state action. In Schneider, police arrested the distributors of handbills even though the litter was caused by other people throwing the handbills away. 308 U. S., at 162. In each of these cases, the State’s legitimate goal in regulating the effects of speech collided with First Amendment freedoms, and the Court therefore balanced the State’s interests against the burden imposed on the exercise of the fundamental right. Cf. Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976) (secondary effects of adult theaters); Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986) (same); United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 687-688 (1985) (earlier conduct threatened military security).*
At some point, of course, the impact of state regulation on First Amendment rights becomes so attenuated that it is easily outweighed by the state interest. But when a State directly and substantially impairs First Amendment activities, such as by shutting down a bookstore, I believe that the State must show, at a minimum, that it has chosen the least restrictive means of pursuing its legitimate objectives. E. g., Cantwell, supra, at 308. The closure of a bookstore can no more be compared to a traffic arrest of a reporter, see ante, at 708 (O’Connor, J., concurring), than the closure *711of a church could be compared to the traffic arrest of its clergyman.
A State has a legitimate interest in forbidding sexual acts committed in public, including a bookstore. An obvious method of eliminating such acts is to arrest the patron committing them. But the statute in issue does not provide for that. Instead, it imposes absolute liability on the bookstore simply because the activity occurs on the premises. And the penalty — a mandatory 1-year closure — imposes an unnecessary burden on speech. Of course “linking the words ‘sex’ and ‘books/” see ante, at 705, is not enough to extend First Amendment protection to illegal sexual activity, but neither should it suffice to remove First Amendment protection from books situated near the site of such activity. The State’s purpose in stopping public lewdness cannot justify such a substantial infringement of First Amendment rights. First Amendment interests require the use of more “sensitive tools.” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525 (1958).
Petitioner has not demonstrated that a less restrictive remedy would be inadequate to abate the nuisance. The Court improperly attempts to shift to the bookseller the responsibility for finding an alternative site. But surely the Court would not uphold a city ordinance banning all public debate on the theory that the residents could move somewhere else. “ ‘[O]ne is not to have the exercise of his liberty of expression in appropriate places abridged on the plea that it may be exercised in some other place.’” Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S., at 556, quoting Schneider v. State, 308 U. S., at 163. Moreover, respondents allege that changes in local zoning laws prevent them from relocating. See Brief for Respondents 10-11; Tr. of Oral Arg. 26, 31-32. Because the statute is not narrowly tailored to further the asserted governmental interest, it is unconstitutional as applied to respondents.
The Court’s decision creates a loophole through which counties like Erie, see also New York v. P. J. Video, Inc., *712475 U. S. 868 (1986); New York v. Uplinger, 467 U. S. 246 (1984), can suppress “undesirable,” protected speech without confronting the protections of the First Amendment. Until today, the Court has required States to confine any book banning to materials that are determined, through constitutionally approved procedures, to be obscene. See Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717 (1961); Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51, 58-59 (1965). Until today, States could enjoin the future dissemination of adult fare as a nuisance only by “adher[ing] to more narrowly drawn procedures than is necessary for the abatement of an ordinary nuisance.” See Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., 445 U. S. 308, 315 (1980). A State now can achieve a sweeping result without any special protection for the First Amendment interests so long as the predicate conduct — which could be as innocent as repeated meetings between a man and a woman — occurs on the premises. That a bookstore might meet the heavy burden of proving selective prosecution, see ante, at 707, n. 4; ante, at 708 (O’CONNOR, J., concurring); see also Wayte v. United States, 470 U. S. 598, 607-610 (1985); Kuzinich v. County of Santa Clara, 689 F. 2d 1345, 1349 (CA9 1982); State v. Flynt, 63 Ohio St. 2d 132, 133, 407 N. E. 2d 15, 17-18, cert. granted, 449 U. S. 1033 (1980), cert. dism’d, 451 U. S. 619 (1981), hardly guarantees the prompt, constitutionally required review necessary to minimize deterrence of protected speech, see New York v. P. J. Video, Inc., 475 U. S., at 873. And even when a State’s only intention is to eliminate sexual acts in public, a 1-year closure has a severe and unnecessary impact on the First Amendment rights of booksellers.
If the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment is to retain its “transcend[ent] value,” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S., at 525, First Amendment interests must be given special protection. Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S., at 509. “‘Freedoms such as these are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being sti*713fled by more subtle governmental interference.’” Healy v. James, 408 U. S. 169, 183 (1972), quoting Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 523 (1960). Since I agree with the New York Court of Appeals that the mandatory closure requirement is unconstitutional as applied to respondents, I dissent from the reversal of that court’s judgment.

Our past cases cannot sensibly be distinguished on the ground that they involved regulation of nonexpressive effects of speech, or regulation of nonspeech “intimately related to expressive conduct,” ante, at 706, n. 3; our concern clearly has been to avoid any exercise of governmental power that “unduly suppress[es]” First Amendment interests. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308 (1940). Would the Court feel differently about the present case if respondents had introduced evidence that the illegal sexual activity at their bookstore had been spurred by the passages read by browsing customers? Under the Court’s apparent theory, paradoxically, a bookstore which sold books that induced such activity would have more protection than a bookstore whose wares had no effect on the sexual behavior of its clientele.