Court Opinion

ID: 9457609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:27:27.768298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:25.599502
License: Public Domain

SIMPSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
On December 11, 1969, John Thomas Flower, 38 years of age, was married and living with his wife and four children in the home he was buying at 126 Brees Boulevard, San Antonio. He had no prior record of felony indictment or conviction, or a conviction for any misdemeanor involving moral turpitude. He was the Peace Secretary for the American Friends Service Committee (an organization closely affiliated with President Nixon’s denomination, the Quaker church, but not per se a part of that body) with jurisdiction for the AFS Committee over the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. On the date indicated Flower was arrested on Braunfels Avenue, an important arterial street of the city of San Antonio, as he stood on the sidewalk of that street distributing handbills or “flyers”.
These handbills gave notice of a meeting to be held on Friday evening, December 12, in Sams Memorial Gymnasium of Trinity University (a Methodist oriented and supported institution of higher learning) sponsored by the Trinity University free forum in San Antonio, at *90which speakers were scheduled to debate with respect to the Vietnam war. The speakers listed on the handbill were Mr. David Carpenter, Republican Affairs Officer of the U. S. State Department, Mr. Richard Sanchez, Chairman of the Mexican-American Advisory Committee to the Republican party, Mr. Jonathan Mirsky, co-director of the East Asian Center at Dartmouth University, and David Plylar, a former Air Force officer and a teacher at Edgewood High School, San Antonio, and identified as holding a Master’s degree in both history and government. The handbill also indicated that there was to be free discussion, including questions and statements from the floor.1
Flower when arrested was on foot, by himself, carrying no picket signs or sound amplifiers, not obstructing anyone and not littering the street. He was not using obscene language or otherwise behaving discourteously. He was simply handing out the described flyer or handbills to passersby, nothing more.
The arrest location was a few yards inside one of the numerous gates to Fort Sam Houston, a permanent U. S. Army installation, in front of the post’s Main Library Building which is. located on the east side of New Braunfels Avenue. New Braunfels Avenue completely traverses the military post from its intersection with Grayson Street on the south to the northerly post gates at Leanda Avenue. The street and its sidewalks are completely open to the public. There is no sentry post or guard at either entrance or anywhere along the route. Traffic flows through the post on this and other streets 24 hours a day. A traffic count conducted on New Braunfels Avenue on January 22, 1968, by the Director of Transportation of the city of San Antonio, shows a daily (24 hour) vehicular count of 15,110 south of Gray-son Street (the place where the street enters the post boundary) and 17,740 vehicles daily north of that point. The street is an important traffic artery used freely by buses, taxi cabs and other pub-lie transportation facilities as well as by private vehicles, and its sidewalks are used extensively at all hours of the day by civilians as well as by military personnel. Fort Sam Houston was an open post; the street, New Braunfels Avenue, was a completely open street.
In addition to the thousands of books of all descriptions available to military personnel in the library, the Fort Sam Houston post exchange nearby offers for sale a complete assortment of current magazines and newspapers of all kinds, including magazines such as “Harper’s” which has long run articles critical of the Army and of the war in Vietnam. The current issue of “Harper’s” on sale on the military post on December 11, 1969, prominently featured on its cover descriptive matter relating to an article highly critical of the Army regarding the My Lai massacre. At many locations on the post, including one on the sidewalk in front of the library adjacent to Flower’s position, were self-service racks offering the San Antonio daily papers for sale. These papers, in addition to editorial matter, carried the usual wire service reports.
The factual matters recited above either were established by the proof or by stipulations at Flower’s nonjury trial or were the subject of offers to prove, or proffers, by Flower’s counsel. It was never disputed by the United States that Fort Sam Houston was a completely open post, with thirty-one entrances through which the general public may enter and leave the post, without challenge from any guard or sentry.
Flower’s arrest was for violation of an “Order of Debarment” from the Deputy Commander of Fort Sam Houston issued October 24, 1969, advising him that his re-entry upon the military reservation would result in his arrest and prosecution under the provisions of Title 18, U.S.Code, Section 1382.2 The stated basis for the prohibition was information that Flower had previously, on October 22, 1969, entered the military reserva*91tion and distributed unauthorized publications.
Following a trial before the court, at which motions to dismiss and for judgment of acquittal raising constitutional issues (including free speech and due process) were raised and denied, the trial judge sentenced the appellant to the maximum penalty provided by law: six months confinement. The trial judge denied Flower bail in any amount and remanded him to the county jail where he remained for three weeks until a panel of this Court ordered him admitted to bail pending appeal in the amount of $500.00.
Because I feel very strongly that this appeal raises constitutional issues of the gravest import arising under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of Flower’s judgment of conviction accomplished by the majority opinion.
I do not believe that the summary exclusion of Flower by the commanding officer from the military reservation can be justified under the decided cases which apply to closed, as opposed to open, military areas.3
The district court rejected Flower’s offers of proof regarding the public’s free access to Fort Sam Houston as immaterial to this prosecution under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1382. The majority adopts the district court’s view of the relevancy of the public’s free and unfettered access to Fort Sam Houston. This shutting out of proof or acknowledgment of the public’s use of the post was, in my view, egregious error. The decision was reached below and is affirmed here in complete disregard of the realities present. Discussion of the military’s right to control is academic and uninstruetive when such control has been abandoned.
It is clearly settled that the First Amendment protects the distribution of handbills on public streets against arbitrary restrictions imposed by governmental officials. In Lovell v. City of Griffin, 1938, 303 U.S. 444, 58 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949, the Supreme Court held that a city ordinance which prohibited the distribution of circulars, handbooks, advertising, or literature of any kind without a permit violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. This statement from Lovell is particularly relevant here:
“The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. * * * The ordinance cannot be saved because it relates to distribution and not to publication.” 303 U.S. at 452, 58 S.Ct. at 669, 82 L.Ed. at 954.
See also Schneider v. State of New Jersey, 1939, 308 U.S. 147, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155, and Jamison v. State of Texas, 1943, 318 U.S. 413, 63 S.Ct. 669, 87 L.Ed. 869.
In Marsh v. Alabama, 1946, 326 U.S. 501, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of an individual charged with violating an Alabama statute prohibiting entering or remaining on the premises of another after a warning not to do so. The petitioner in Marsh was prosecuted for engaging in the distribution of religious literature on the streets of a town wholly owned by a corporation. After noting that the town was completely accessible to the general public, the Court stated:
“As we have heretofore stated, the town of Chickasaw does not function differently from any other town. The ‘business block’ serves as the community shopping center and is freely *92accessible and open to the people in the area and those passing through. The managers appointed by the corporation cannot curtail the liberty of press and religion of these people consistently with the purposes of the Constitutional guarantees, and a state statute, as the one here involved, which enforces such action by criminally punishing those who attempt to distribute religious literature clearly violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.” 326 U.S. at 507-508, 66 S.Ct. at 279, 90 L.Ed. at 269.
The Court also observed that “the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.” 326 U.S. at 506, 66 S.Ct. at 278, 90 L.Ed. at 268; See additionally, Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, 1968, 391 U.S. 308, 88 S.Ct. 1601, 20 L.Ed.2d 603 (state court injunction barring peaceful picketing on shopping center location held violative of First and Fourteenth Amendments).
The leading Supreme Court decision dealing with the power of the military to exclude individuals from military reservations is Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers Union, Local 473, AFL-CIO v. McElroy, supra, footnote 3. That case involved a suit by the union and one of its members against the Secretary of Defense and others seeking to compel the return to the employee of her identification badge so that she could enter the Naval Gun Factory and resume her former employment with a private concessionaire. The Court held that the action of the installation’s commander in summarily denying a civilian employee of a private contractor access to the installation for security reasons did not violate the requirements of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment even though such denial was effected without advising the employee of the specific grounds for her exclusion and without according her a hearing. In analyzing the Court’s opinion in Cafeteria, Workers, its own description of the security aspects surrounding the Naval Gun Factory should be kept in mind:
“The Gun Factory was engaged in designing, producing, and inspecting naval ordnance, including the development of weapons systems of a highly classified nature. Located on property owned by the United States, the installation was under the command of Rear Admiral D. M. Tyree, Superintendent. Access to it was restricted, and guards were posted at all points of entry. Identification badges were issued to persons authorized to enter the premises by the Security Officer, a naval officer subordinate to the Superintendent.” 367 U.S. at 887, 81 S.Ct. at 1744-1745, 6 L.Ed.2d at 1231-1232.
Significantly, the Court indicated that the Superintendent was not free to deny access to his post for any reason which he might deem appropriate:
“We may assume that Rachel Brawner could not constitutionally have been excluded from the Gun Factory if the announced grounds for her exclusion had been patently arbitrary or discriminatory — that she could not have been kept out because she was a Democrat or a Methodist.” 367 U.S. at 898, 81 S.Ct. at 1750, 6 L.Ed.2d at 1238.
Judge Sobeloff’s opinion in United States v. Bradley, 4 Cir. 1969, 418 F.2d 688, reflects an awareness of the constitutional issues presented by a prosecution under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1382, arising out of handbilling on a military installation:
“Fortifying our interpretation is the venerable principle that a provision should be construed, if possible, to avoid doubts about its constitutionality. Should we accept the more expansive interpretation urged by the prosecution, we would confront substantial constitutional issues. Without reaching the merits, we recognize that at the very least, appellants’ constitutional arguments are far from frivolous.” 418 F.2d at 691.
*93See also, Kiiskila v. Nichols, 7 Cir. 1970, 433 F.2d 745 (order excluding civilian employee of military credit union from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, held violative of employee’s First Amendment rights). But cf. Weissman v. United States, 10 Cir. 1967, 387 F.2d 271, upholding convictions for violations of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1382, following disruptive behavior of appellants at on-post courts-martial.
The prior decisions of this Court in the field do not compel a view differing from mine. Jelinski v. United States, 5 Cir. 1969, 411 F.2d 476, cert. denied, 396 U.S. 943, 90 S.Ct. 380, 24 L.Ed.2d 245, was a prosecution for a violation of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1382, which arose out of the appellant’s refusal to abide by a debarment order issued by the commander of Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, after the appellant had committed several acts of misconduct on the installation. We held simply that the base commander was not required to afford notice and a hearing to the appellant before issuing his order. In Government of Canal Zone v. Brooks, 5 Cir. 1970, 427 F.2d 346, we held that a conviction under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1382 was not improper as a result of a minor deviation from the Army regulation governing the issuance of debarment orders.
On the date of his arrest, Flower was standing on a street which was freely accessible to the general public. The Army, for reasons of its own, having decided to make Fort Sam Houston an “open” base — perhaps because the mission of the base was not highly classified or because it was less costly to admit the general public without restriction-should not be permitted to exercise prior restraint on Flower’s exercise of his First Amendment right to distribute leaflets on a public street. The Army’s order barring Flower from re-entry to Fort Sam Houston was arbitrary and a clear violation of his constitutional rights. I would not hesitate to reverse this conviction with directions to dismiss the information.

. The full text of the handbill is reproduced at the end of the majority opinion.

. The debarment order is Appendix A and the text of Section 1382 is Appendix B to the majority opinion.

. Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers, etc. v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961) ; United States v. Jelinski, 5 Cir. 1969, 411 F.2d 476; Government of Canal Zone v. Brooks, 5 Cir. 1970, 427 F.2d 346.