Court Opinion

ID: 9431031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:11.868228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.690788
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and its judgment except that I do not agree with any implication — if one exists — see ante, at 461-462, that Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518 (1972), and Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U. S. 130 (1974), are good law in the context of their facts, or that they lend any real support to the judgment under review in this case. I dissented in Gooding and Lewis, see 405 U. S., at 534, and 415 U. S., at 136, in the conviction that the legislation there under consideration was related to “fighting words,” within the teaching and reach of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942). I am still of that view, and I therefore disassociate myself from any possible suggestion that those cases are controlling authority here. The Houston ordinance before us, however, as is evident from its very language, and as the Court demonstrates, ante, at 462-463, 465, is far more broad and more offensive to First Amendment values and is susceptible of regular application to protected expression.
Justice Scalia,
concurring in the judgment.
For the reasons stated by Justice Powell in Part II of his opinion, I agree that abstention would not be appropriate in this case. Because I do not believe that the Houston ordinance is reasonably susceptible of a limiting construction that would avoid the constitutional question posed in this case, I agree with the Court that certification would also be inappropriate. On the merits, I agree with the views expressed by *473Justice Powell in Part III of his opinion. I therefore concur in the judgment and joins Parts II and III of Justice Powell’s opinion.