Court Opinion

ID: 9425642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:19.336456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.712443
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, dissenting.
I agree with the concurring opinion of my Brother White insofar as he concludes that the Massachusetts law is not unconstitutionally vague, but I do not agree with him that the law under which appellee Goguen was convicted violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The issue of the application of the First Amendment to expressive conduct, or “symbolic speech,” is *592undoubtedly a difficult one, and in cases dealing with the United States flag it has unfortunately been expounded only in dissents and concurrences. See Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 594 (1969) (Warren, C. J., dissenting), 609 (Black, J., dissenting), 610 (White, J., dissenting), 615 (Fortas, J., dissenting); and Cowgill v. California, 396 U. S. 371 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). Nonetheless, since I disagree with the Court's conclusion that the statute is unconstitutionally vague, I must, unlike the. Court, address appellant's First Amendment contentions.
The question whether the State may regulate the display of the flag in the circumstances shown by this record appears to be an open one under our decisions. Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U. S. 34 (1907); Street v. New York, supra; Cowgill v. California, supra (Harlan, J., concurring) ; People v. Radich, 26 N. Y. 2d 114, 257 N. E. 2d 30, aff'd by an equally divided Court, 401 U. S. 531 (1971).
What the Court rightly describes as “the slender record in this case,” ante, at 568, shows only that Goguen wore a small cloth version of the United States flag sewn to the seat of his blue jeans. When the' first police officer questioned him, he was standing with a group of people on Main Street in Leominster, Massachusetts. The people with him were laughing. When the second police officer saw him, he was “walking in the downtown business district of Leominster, wearing a short coat, casual type pants and a miniature American flag sewn on the left side of his pants.” Goguen did not testify, and there is nothing in the record before us to indicate what he was attempting to communicate by his conduct, or, indeed,, whether he was attempting to communicate anything at all. The record before us does not even conclusively reveal whether Goguen sewed the flag on the *593pants himself, or whether the pants were manufactured complete with flag; his counsel here, however, who was also his trial counsel, stated in oral argument that of his own knowledge the pants were not manufactured with the flag on them. Finally, it does not appear whether appellee said anything during his journey through the streets of Leominster; his amended bill of exceptions to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts made no mention of any testimony indicating that he spoke at all.
Goguen was prosecuted under the Massachusetts statute set forth in the opinion of the Court, and has asserted here not only a claim of unconstitutional vagueness but a claim that the statute infringes his right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
I
There is a good deal of doubt on this record that Goguen was trying to communicate any particular idea, and had he been convicted under a statute which simply prohibited improper display of the flag I would be satisfied to conclude that his conduct in wearing the flag on the seat of his pants did not come within even the outermost limits of that sort of “expressive conduct” or “symbolic speech” which is entitled to any First Amendment protection. But Goguen was convicted of treating the flag contemptuously by the act of wearing it where he did, and I have difficulty seeing how Goguen could be found by a jury to have treated the flag contemptuously by his act and still not to have expressed any idea at all. There are, therefore, in my opinion, at least marginal elements of “symbolic speech” in Goguen’s conduct as reflected by this record.
Many cases which could be said to involve conduct no less expressive than Goguen’s, however, have never been thought to require analysis in First Amendment *594terms because of the presence of other factors. One who burns down the factory of a company whose products he dislikes can expect his First Amendment defense to a consequent arson prosecution to be given short shrift by the courts. The arson statute safeguards the government’s substantial interest in preventing the destruction of property by means dangerous to human life, and an arsonist’s motive is quite irrelevant. The same fate would doubtless await the First Amendment claim of one prosecuted for destruction of government property after he defaced a speed limit sign in order to protest the stated speed limit. Both the arsonist and the defacer of traffic signs have infringed on the property interests of others, whether of another individual or of the government. Yet Goguen, unlike either, has so far as this record shows infringed on the ordinary property rights of no one.
That Goguen owned the flag with which he adorned himself, however, is not dispositive of the First Amendment issue. Just as the government may not escape the reach of the First Amendment by asserting that it acts only in a proprietary capacity with respect to streets and parks to which it has title, Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, 514^516 (1939), a defendant such as Goguen may not escape the reach of the police power of the State of Massachusetts by asserting that his act affected only his own property. Indeed, there are so many well-established exceptions to the proposition that one may do what he likes with his own property that it cannot be said to have even the status of a general rule.
The very substantial authority of state and local governing bodies to regulate the use of land, and thereby to limit the uses available to the owner of the land, was established nearly a half century ago in Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926). Land-use regulations *595in a residential zoning district typically do not merely exclude malodorous and unsightly rendering plants; they often also prohibit erection of buildings or monuments, including ones open to the public, which might itself in an aesthetic sense involve substantial elements of “expressive conduct.” The performance of a play may well constitute expressive conduct or “pure” speech, but a landowner may not for that reason insist on the right to construct and operate a theater in an area zoned for noncommercial uses. So long as the zoning laws do not, under the guise of neutrality, actually prohibit the expression of ideas because of their content, they have not been thought open to challenge under the First Amendment.
As may land, so may other kinds of property be subjected to close regulation and control. A person with an ownership interest in controlled drugs, or in firearms, cannot use them, sell them, and transfer them in whatever manner he pleases. The copyright laws, 17 U. S. C. § 1 et seq., limit what use the purchaser of a copyrighted book may make of his acquisition. A company may be restricted in what it advertises on its billboards, Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 U. S. 105 (1932).
The statute which Goguen violated, however, does not purport to protect the related interests of other property owners, neighbors, or indeed any competing ownership interest in the same property; the interest which it protects is that of the Government, and is not a traditional property interest.
Even in this, however, laws regulating use of the flag are by no means unique. A number of examples can be found of statutes enacted by Congress which protect only a peculiarly governmental interest in property otherwise privately owned. Title 18 U. S. C. § 504 prohibits the printing or publishing in actual size or in actual *596color of any United States postage or revenue stamp, or of any obligation or security of the United States. It likewise prohibits the importation of any plates for the purpose of such printing. Title 18 U. S. C. § 331 prohibits the alteration of any Federal Reserve note or national bank note, and 18 U. S. C. § 333 prohibits the disfiguring or defacing of any national bank note or coin. Title 18 U. S. C. § 702 prohibits the wearing of a military uniform, any part of such uniform, or anything similar to a military uniform or part thereof without proper authorization. Title 18 U. S. C. § 704 prohibits the unauthorized wearing of service medals. It is not without significance that many of these statutes, though long on the books, have never been judicially construed or even challenged.
My Brother White says, however, that whatever may be said of neutral statutes simply designed to protect a governmental interest in private property, which in the case of the flag may be characterized as an interest in preserving its physical integrity, the Massachusetts statute here is not neutral. It punishes only those who treat the flag contemptuously, imposing no penalty on those who “treat” it otherwise, that is, those who impair its physical integrity in some other way.
II
Leaving aside for the moment the nature of the governmental interest in protecting the physical integrity of the flag, I cannot accept the conclusion that the Massachusetts statute must be invalidated for punishing only some conduct that impairs the flag's physical integrity. It is true, as the Court observes, that we do not have in so many words a “narrowing construction” of the statute from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. But the first of this Court’s decisions cited in the short *597rescript opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court is Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U. S. 34 (1907), which upheld against constitutional attack a Nebraska statute which forbade the use of the United States flag for purposes of advertising. We also have the benefit of an opinion of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that the statute under which Goguen was prosecuted, being penal, “ ‘is not to be enlarged beyond its plain import, and as a general rule is strictly construed.’ ” Report of Atty. Gen., Pub. Doc. No. 12, pp. 192-193 (1968). With this guidance, and the further assistance of the content of the entire statutory prohibition, I think the Supreme Judicial Court would read the language “whoever publicly mutilates, tramples upon, defaces, or treats contemptuously the flag of the United States . . .” as carrying the clear implication that the contemptuous treatment, like mutilation, trampling upon, or defacing, must involve some actual physical contact with the flag itself. Such a reading would exclude a merely derogatory gesture performed at a distance from the flag, as Well as purely verbal disparagement of it.*
If the statute is thus limited to acts which affect the physical integrity of the flag, the question remains whether the State has sought only to punish those who impair the flag’s physical integrity for the purpose of disparaging it as a symbol, while permitting impairment *598of its physical integrity by those who do not seek to disparage it as a symbol. If that were the case, holdings like Schacht v. United States, 398 U. S. 58 (1970), suggest that such a law would abridge the right of free expression.
But Massachusetts metes out punishment to anyone who publicly mutilates, tramples, or defaces the flag, regardless of his motive or purpose. It also punishes the display of any “words, figures, advertisements or designs” on the flag, or the use of a flag in a parade as a receptacle for depositing or collecting money. Likewise prohibited is the offering or selling of any article on which is engraved a representation of the United States flag.
The variety of these prohibitions demonstrates that Massachusetts has not merely prohibited impairment of the physical integrity of the flag by those who would cast contempt upon it, but equally by those who would seek to take advantage of its favorable image in order to facilitate any commercial purpose, or those who would seek to convey any message at all by means of imprinting words or designs on the flag. These prohibitions are broad enough that it can be fairly said that the Massachusetts statute is one essentially designed to preserve the physical integrity of the flag, and not merely to punish those who would infringe that integrity for the purpose of disparaging the flag as a symbol. While it is true that the statute does not appear to cover one who simply wears a flag, unless his conduct for other reasons falls within its prohibitions, the legislature is not required to address every related matter in an area with one statute. Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 656-658 (1966). It may well be that the incidence of such conduct at the time the statute was enacted was not thought to warrant legislation in order to preserve the physical integrity of the flag.
*599In United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), the Court observed:
“We cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled ‘speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” Id., at 376.
Then, proceeding “on the assumption that the alleged communicative element in O’Brien’s conduct [was] sufficient to bring into play the First Amendment,” the Court held that a regulation of conduct was sufficiently justified
“if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers air important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.” Id., at 377.
While I have some doubt that the first enunciation of a group of tests such as those established in O’Brien sets them in concrete for all time, it does seem to me that the Massachusetts statute substantially complies with those tests. There can be no question that a statute such as the Massachusetts one here is “within” the constitutional power of a State to enact. Since the statute by this reading punishes'a variety of uses of the flag which would impair its physical integrity, without regard to presence or character of expressive conduct in connection with those uses, I think the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression. The question of whether the governmental interest is “substantial” is not easy to sever from the question of whether the restriction is “no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest,” and I therefore treat those *600two aspects of the matter together. I believe that both of these tests are met, and that the governmental interest is sufficient to outweigh whatever collateral suppression of expressive conduct was involved in the actions of Goguen. In so concluding, I find myself in agreement not only with my Brother White in this case, but with those members of the Court referred to earlier in this opinion who dissented from the Court’s disposition in the case of Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576 (1969).
My Brother White alludes to the early legislation both of the Continental Congress and of the Congress of the new Nation dealing with the flags, and observes: “One need not explain fully a phenomenon to recognize its existence and in this case to concede that the flag is an important symbol of nationhood and unity, created by the Nation and endowed with certain attributes. Conceived in this light, I have no doubt about the validity of laws designating and describing the flag and regulating its use, display, and disposition.” I agree.
On September 17, 1787, as the last members of the Constitutional Convention were signing the instrument, James Madison in his “Notes” describes the occurrence of the following incident:
“Whilst the last members were signing it Doctor Franklin looking towards the President’s Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” 4 Writings of James Madison 482-483 (Hunt ed. 1903).
*601Writing for this Court more than one hundred years later, Mr. Justice Holmes made the familiar statement:
“[W]hen we are dealing with words that also are a constituent act, like the Constitution of the United States, we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. It was enough for them to realize or to hope that they had created an organism; it has taken a century and has cost their successors much sweat and blood to prove that they created a nation. The case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago.” Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416, 433 (1920).
From its earliest days, the art and literature of our country have assigned a special place to the flag of the United States. It figures prominently in at least one of Charles Willson Peale’s portraits of George Washington, showing him as leader of the forces of the 13 Colonies during the Revolutionary War. No one who lived through the Second World War in this country can forget the impact of the photographs of the members of the United States Marine Corps raising the United States flag on the top of Mount Suribachi on the Island of Iwo Jima, which is now commemorated in a statue at the Iwo Jima Memorial adjoining Arlington National Cemetery.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing 50 years after the battles of Lexington and Concord, wrote:
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard ’round the world.”
*602Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, celebrated the flag that had flown on “Old Ironsides” during the War of 1812, and John Greenleaf Whittier made Barbara Frietchie’s devotion to the “silken scarf” in the teeth of Stonewall Jackson’s ominous threats the central theme of his familiar poem. John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” and George M. Cohan’s “It’s a Grand Old Flag” are musical celebrations of the flag familiar to adults and children alike. Francis Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner” is the country’s national anthem.
While most of the artistic evocations of the flag occur in the context of times of national struggle, and correspondingly greater dependence on the flag as a symbol of national unity, the importance of the flag is by no means limited to the field of hostilities. The United States flag flies over every federal courthouse in our Nation, and is prominently displayed in almost every federal, state, or local public building throughout the land. It is the one visible embodiment of the authority of the National Government, through which the laws of the Nation and the guarantees of the Constitution are enforced.
It is not empty rhetoric to say that the United States Constitution, even the First and Fourteenth Amendments under which Goguen seeks to upset his conviction, does not invariably in the world of practical affairs enforce itself. Going back no further than the memories of most of us presently alive, the United States flag was carried by federal troops summoned by the President to enforce decrees of federal courts in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, and in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1962.
The significance of the flag, and the deep emotional feelings it arouses in a large part of our citizenry, cannot be fully expressed in the two dimensions of a lawyer’s brief or of a judicial opinion. But if the Government *603may create private proprietary interests in written work and in musical and theatrical performances by virtue of copyright laws, I see no reason why it may not, for all of the reasons mentioned, create a similar governmental interest in the flag by prohibiting even those who have purchased the physical object from impairing its physical integrity. For what they have purchased is not merely cloth dyed red, white, and blue, but also the one visible manifestation of two hundred years of nationhood — a history compiled by generations of our forebears and contributed to by streams of immigrants from the four corners of the globe, which has traveled a course since the time of this country’s origin that could not have been “foreseen ... by the most gifted of its begetters.’-
The permissible scope of government regulation of this unique physical object cannot be adequately dealt with in terms of the law of private property or by a highly abstract, scholastic interpretation of the First Amendment. Massachusetts has not prohibited Goguen from wearing a sign sewn to the seat of his pants expressing in words his low opinion of the flag, of the country, or anything else. It has prohibited him from wearing there a particular symbol of extraordinary significance and content, for which significance and content Goguen is in no wise responsible. The flag of the United States is not just another “thing,” and it is not just another “idea”; it is not primarily an idea at all.
Here Goguen was, so far as this record appears, quite free to express verbally whatever views it was he was seeking to express by wearing a flag sewn to his pants, on the streets of Leominster or in any of its parks or commons where free speech and assembly were customarily permitted. He was not compelled in any way to salute the flag, pledge allegiance to it, or make any *604affirmative gesture of support or respect for it such as would contravene West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943). He was simply prohibited from impairing the physical integrity of a unique national symbol which has been given content by generations of his and our forebears, a symbol of which he had acquired a copy. I believe Massachusetts had a right to enact this prohibition.

To the extent that counsel for appellant who argued the cause in the Court of Appeals may have intimated a broader construction in the colloquy in that court quoted in this Court’s opinion, ante, at 575-576. I would attach little weight to it. We have previously said that we are “loath to attach conclusive weight to the relatively spontaneous responses of counsel to equally spontaneous questioning from the Court during oral argument,” Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 170 (1972), and if that be the case surely even less weight should be ascribed by us to a colloquy which took place in another court.