Court Opinion

ID: 9486147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:39:02.360254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:32.808629
License: Public Domain

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge,
with whom BAUER, Circuit Judge, and FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge, join, dissenting.
I agree with the majority that no person has an inherent or fundamental right under the Constitution to build a structure on public property, but my agreement with Judge Manion’s opinion ends there. The issue is not whether a municipality may regulate speech taking place on a public sidewalk — of course it may — but what the city must demonstrate to justify the regulation. Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515-516, 59 S.Ct. 954, *1336963-64. I respectfully dissent because the majority’s decision is at odds with two recent Supreme Court decisions: City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 100 L.Ed.2d 771, and FW/ PBS v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603. In each case, the Court struck down municipal licensing schemes that regulated some form of speech — in Lakewood newsracks, and in FW/ PBS sexually oriented businesses — because the ordinances placed too much power in the hands of a city official. The Court feared that the city official might abuse his authority by discriminating against the speaker based on the content of his speech. In the present case, Chicago also seeks to license First Amendment activity and in so doing has vested a city administrator with the power of content discrimination.
By upholding the Chicago ordinance, the majority ignores or contradicts Lakewood and FW/PBS in at least three respects. First, Judge Manion contends that Chicago’s newsstand ordinance does not implicate the First Amendment at all because it merely regulates conduct, not speech. This is insupportable. Lakewood struck down a regulation of newsracks as a prior restraint under the First Amendment, and newsracks and newsstands are as close an analogy as one is likely to find. Not even the majority seems persuaded by this view of the First Amendment, since the opinion goes on to analyze Richard Graffs challenge in constitutional terms. Second, Lakewood, FW/PBS and a long series of earlier decisions review licensing schemes directed at First Amendment activity as prior restraints on speech that are valid only if the licensor’s power is checked by procedural safeguards. The majority, however, frames Chicago’s ordinance as merely a time, place and manner regulation, not a prior restraint, and subjects it to only the most deferential scrutiny. Third, FW/ PBS requires an ordinance like Chicago’s to provide for prompt judicial review of the decision to deny a license — and FW/PBS shows that common law certiorari cannot meet this requirement. Yet the majority upholds Chicago’s newsstand ordinance (which is silent on the subject of judicial review) on the ground that common law cer-tiorari is available. Today’s decision can only sow confusion in First Amendment jurisprudence and weaken the protections it affords for newsstand operators and others as well.
Because Lakewood held that erecting newsracks on public property is speech protected under the First Amendment, the majority must explain how newsstands differ from newsracks if it is to hold that the former do not constitute speech. According to the opinion, “newsstands compared to newsracks are much larger, more permanent structures that occupy a significant portion of limited sidewalk space. Thus, building and operating a newsstand is conduct, not speech * * * ” (Opinion at p. 1315). The argument, in essence, is that newsstands receive less First Amendment protection than newsracks because they hold more opinions and are bigger. With all due respect, these distinctions cannot remove newsstands from the First Amendment. It is true that the size of newsstands might make them a more inviting subject of municipal regulation, although one large newsstand produces less clutter than several newsracks chained to various street lamps. Yet size itself suggests nothing about whether the selling of newspapers and magazines from a stand is speech or conduct. And since the First Amendment is all about seeing to it that citizens have access to a wide variety of opinions and information, the fact that stands offer more opinions than racks would suggest that they should receive greater, not lesser protection. Cf. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377, 47 S.Ct. 641, 648, 71 L.Ed. 1095 (Brandéis, J., concurring); Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 20, 65 S.Ct. 1416, 1424, 89 L.Ed. 2013; N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 266, 84 S.Ct. 710, 718, 11 L.Ed.2d 686. Newsracks might be a more convenient target for content discrimination because they sell discrete products, but this fact is also irrelevant in the initial judgment about whether the operation of a newsstand is conduct or speech.
In truth, it is both. Cf. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342; Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284; Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 *1337S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731. As the majority points out, erecting a structure on a sidewalk is a physical act. But Graff did not seek a permit merely to build a stand on the public pavement; he also wanted permission to show up every morning and hawk his newspapers and magazines from its confines, just like the publisher in Lakewood who used newsracks to sell papers. There is of course no inherent First Amendment value in the mundane activity of placing metal boxes on street corners. Nevertheless, the boxes in Lakewood received constitutional protection because they made the distribution of First Amendment material easier. Here the city argues that Graff can sell his papers and magazines from the sidewalk without the stand, but this misses the point. The stand is an implement of commerce that facilitates the vendor’s free speech. Graffs newsstand gives him greater visibility, a stable location, and the ability to sell a wide variety of publications. The publishers in Lakewood could also have sold their papers without newsracks by simply leaving piles of papers on street corners under rocks — -with honest purchasers depositing their quarters in small cups. But the Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment protects the expression of ideas as well as ideas themselves, and that distribution is an inseparable part of expression. See, e.g., Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 150, 80 S.Ct. 215, 217, 4 L.Ed.2d 205. To hold otherwise would be to elevate form over substance; one might as well say that publishing a newspaper is purely conduct because, after all, putting ink to paper is a physical act. Moreover, the speech the city seeks to regulate here takes place on a traditional public forum: the sidewalk. Hague, 307 U.S. at 515-516, 59 S.Ct. at 963-64. I do not suggest that all regulation is inappropriate. But to pretend that the First Amendment does not come into play at all is mistaken. As Justice Roberts said in Hague, the right of citizens to use the sidewalk for speech “is not absolute, but relative * * *. But it must not, in the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied.” Id.
A second fallacy underlies the majority’s discussion. It is that newsstand operators such as Graff do not need the protections of the First Amendment because the potential for abuse is small. The majority suggests both that Chicago lacks the means and will to discriminate on the basis of content, and that newsstands, since they are not associated with one particular publication, are not likely targets of such discrimination. This reasoning is undoubtedly behind the majority’s failure to recognize that licensing of newsstand operators constitutes a prior restraint. But newsstand operators do have a point of view based on the publications they choose to peddle. Their decisions to sell or not sell pornography, religious literature and political publications are matters of judgment, advocacy and editorial discretion, like booksellers. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 72 S.Ct. 777, 96 L.Ed. 1098; Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 56 S.Ct. 444, 80 L.Ed. 660; Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 150, 80 S.Ct. 215, 217, 4 L.Ed.2d 205. Recall that Graffs suit like FW/PBS and Lakewood is a facial challenge; thus the harm is necessarily theoretical. As the majority correctly points out, it is unlikely that the mayor in a pique over an unfavorable editorial would order municipal employees to revoke the license of every newsstand selling the Chicago Tribune (ie., every newsstand in the city). But it is hardly a stretch to imagine city officials using the threat, of license renewal to combat the prevalence of pornographic but perfectly legal magazines on the ■ sidewalks. Nor is it difficult to imagine officials, angry over articles in one of the many smaller, less visible weekly publications sold in Chicago, threatening newsstand operators who refuse to drop the offending organ. The majority suggests that even if every newsstand were closed, the Chicago Tribune would have other methods of distribution including newsboys, newsracks and in-building newsstands. This is true enough for the Chicago Tribune, but not so for the hundreds of other, smaller, off-beat publications that are available only at newsstands. To these publications, newsstands — where the marginal cost of carrying an additional paper or magazine is low — represent the only access to the marketplace; after all, not every publisher can afford to blanket the city with newsracks or persuade bookstores paying premium rents to sell its product.
*1338Moreover, contrary to the majority’s assertions, the ordinance at issue does leave room for city officials to punish newsstands based on content. Though at first blush the statute offers elaborate procedural guidelines for the issuance and denial of permits, these are illusory. For example, Section 10-28-160(a) outlines procedures for hearings and reports by which a City Council committee is to comment on a proposed newsstand license. But these procedures are entirely optional. Under the ordinance the City Council could decide not to comment on newsstand applications at all. In addition, in each case not involving an historical landmark, the Commissioner of Public Works is the sole, unfettered decisionmaker. It is a measure of the leniency of the city’s criteria that Graffs application was ultimately denied even though his stand has operated at the same site for approximately seventy years; the ordinance instructs the Commissioner to consider a stand’s longevity before granting or denying a permit, but this did not help Graff. Perhaps the most glaring deficiency in the ordinance, however, is the lone reference to subsequent review of the Commissioner’s decision. Under Section 10-28-160(c), a vendor whose application is denied has ten days to request a hearing “at which he will be given an opportunity to prove that the determination of the Commissioner was in error.” The ordinance does not define error or specify what proof is required. And the person who reviews the decision by the Commissioner of Public Works is none other than the Commissioner of Public Works! The ordinance merely instructs the Commissioner to issue a permit promptly if he “determines that his previous determination was incorrect.” Chicago Mun.Code § 10-28-160(c). Given the lacle of genuine means for appeal, judicial or otherwise, and the purely optional nature of these procedures, the city’s standards are mere window-dressing rather than a practical check on the power of the administrator.
The city contends that any attempt at content discrimination would fail because permit applications do not contain a list of what publications a particular newsstand sells. This is hardly comforting. City officials, were they so inclined, could stroll over to a stand and examine for themselves what magazines are sold. The ordinance also contains no minimum or maximum limit on the number of permits issued. Thus were the Commissioner seeking to punish a stand for selling a specific publication, he would not face the obstacle of having to find a replacement vendor. Officials also are expressly instructed under the ordinance to give preference to stands selling the most daily newspapers. The majority characterizes this provision as “an obvious attempt at variety, not indoctrination” (Opinion at p. 1321). But why does Chicago feel compelled to state a preference when the marketplace itself will prompt newsstand operators to carry more dailies if, as the majority maintains, they reach the most number of people? This looks like an attempt by officials to curry favor with the most powerful press in the city.
Each of these deficiencies is aggravated by the silence of the ordinance on the subject of judicial review. Here is where the Chicago regulation runs smack into a constitutional wall. The majority tries to steer around the wall by holding that the ordinance is not a prior restraint and subject to merely time, place and manner analysis. The majority’s view ensues from its treatment of the Chicago regulation as a zoning ordinance rather than a licensing scheme. Thus the majority analogizes Graffs challenge to City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, 475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29. In that case the Court upheld a municipal ordinance prohibiting adult theaters from setting up shop close to a house, church, park or school. The Court applied a time, place and manner analysis — that is, the justices asked only whether the ordinance was designed to serve a substantial governmental interest and whether it allowed for reasonable alternative avenues of communication. Id. at 50, 106 S.Ct. at 930. But the ordinance in City of Renton was a zoning restriction — that is, it established rules that applied across the board to all similarly situated enterprises. There was no threat in City of Renton, then, that a deci-sionmaker would discriminate against individual merchants based on the content of what they sold. Under a licensing scheme, by contrast, a city official is vested with the power to make decisions regarding individual *1339permit applicants. The Chicago ordinance— where an official grants or denies individual permit applications and then reviews the permits periodically — is analogous not to the ordinance in City of Renton but to the ordinances in FW/PBS and Lakewood.
Chicago’s licensing scheme represents a classic prior restraint because it forces news vendors to apply for a permit from local officials before they can sell newspapers and magazines; the city itself assumes the power to regulate speech and puts the authority of denial in the hands of one official. As the Court said in Lakewood, “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” 486 U.S. at 759, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. There the Court recognized two critical factors — both present in this case as well — that identified a licensing scheme subject to facial challenge. First, businesses had to apply for licenses that were periodically renewed by the issuer. Second, the licensing system was “directed narrowly and specifically at expression or conduct commonly associated with expression: the circulation of newspapers.” Id. at 760, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. The Chicago ordinance is also directed specifically at newsstand operators: “It shall be unlawful for any person to erect, locate, construct or maintain any newspaper stand * * * without obtaining a permit * * *.” Chicago Mun. Code § 10-28-130.
A licensing scheme that operates as a prior restraint, as opposed to a zoning ordinance, is subject to more intense scrutiny than mere time, place and manner analysis; the regulation must also provide adequate procedural safeguards to prevent city officials from abusing their discretion. The Supreme Court has held in a long line of cases that authority exercised to administer a licensing scheme must be bounded by clear and precise standards where officials have the power to foreclose speech in public places. Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 553, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1243, 43 L.Ed.2d 448; Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 150-151, 89 S.Ct. 935, 938-39; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 322, 78 S.Ct. 277, 282, 2 L.Ed.2d 302; Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 293-294, 71 S.Ct. 312, 314-15, 95 L.Ed. 280; Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 161-162, 60 S.Ct. 146, 149-51, 84 L.Ed. 155; Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 59 S.Ct. 954. A prior restraint “avoids constitutional infirmity only if it takes place under procedural safeguards designed to obviate the dangers of a censorship system.” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 58, 85 S.Ct. 734, 738, 13 L.Ed.2d 649. An ordinance must contain explicit limits on the decisionmaker’s discretion. Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 769, 108 S.Ct. at 2150. It is also clear that these limits must exist whether or not a municipal ordinance also happens to pass muster as a time, place and manner restriction. In FW/ PBS, for example, the plurality did not even reach the time, place and manner question because the procedural safeguards in that ordinance were inadequate. 493 U.S. at 223, 110 S.Ct. at 603.
It is thus both surprising and dismaying that the Court’s decision today focuses so heavily on the merits of the Chicago ordinance as a time, place and manner restriction, to the exclusion of its other failings. Given the lack of sufficient procedural safeguards, the majority’s discussion of time, place and manner is interesting, but beside the point. Under FW/PBS, which by the way follows from a long line of cases setting forth similar standards, a city may only license a business associated with First Amendment freedoms if, first, the licensor is obligated to grant or deny the permit within a specified and reasonable time during which the status quo is maintained and, second, if there is the possibility of prompt judicial review in the event the license is erroneously denied. Id. at 228, 110 S.Ct. at 606. A ministerial action denying a license is not presumptively invalid, unlike most prior restraints, and the city is not required to justify its decision in court on every occasion. Id. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 607. However, the vendor denied a license must be able to seek prompt judicial review, and the absence of review is fatal. See Southeastern Promotions, 420 U.S. at 561-562, 95 S.Ct. at 1247-48; FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. *1340at 606;1 Freedman, 380 U.S. at 58, 85 S.Ct. at 738; cf. Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 442-443, 77 S.Ct. 1325, 1328-29, 1 L.Ed.2d 1469.
Even the majority admits that in Freedman the Supreme Court has “set out the apparent requirement that an ordinance such as this explicitly provide for prompt judicial review” (Opinion at p. 1324). Since the Chicago ordinance makes no mention of prompt judicial review, and indeed provides no mechanism for it, it must be invalid. According to the majority, however, “it is not clear” why the Freedman Court chose to require that licensing schemes make explicit provision for prompt judicial review when common law certiorari is available (Opinion at p. 1324). The majority uses its confusion as an excuse simply to ignore the requirement by stating that the availability of common law certiorari is an adequate form of judicial review when an ordinance is otherwise silent. The majority’s conclusion is in direct conflict with FW! PBS, 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606. In that case, the Supreme Court held that a municipal ordinance — where of course appeal by common law certiorari was also available — was invalid in part because it “fail[ed] to provide an avenue for prompt judicial review so as to minimize suppression of the speech in the event of a license denial. We therefore hold that the failure to provide these essential safeguards renders the ordinance’s licensing requirement unconstitutional insofar as it is enforced against those businesses engaged in First Amendment activity * * *.” 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606. In fact, the ordinance struck down in FW/PBS for want of judicial review had a more elaborate appeals procedure than Chicago’s newsstand ordinance, including the right to take one’s case to a permit and license appeal board and to an automatic stay during those proceedings.2 Clearly, if the ever-present availability of common law cer-tiorari was unable to cure the ordinance in Dallas, it cannot save the Chicago ordinance either. The majority’s holding to the contrary puts this Circuit at odds with an explicit and oft-repeated mandate from the Supreme Court.
Common law certiorari is insufficient because it is much too slow and uncertain as a mechanism for safeguarding speech. It is an unfortunate fact of life in the modern court system that it may take years, and cost a plaintiff a great deal of money, before his complaint receives a hearing on the merits. Contrast that with the traditional vigilance First Amendment jurisprudence has shown toward prior restraints on speech:
Any system of prior restraint * * * “comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” * * * The presumption against prior restraints is heavier — and the degree of protection broader — than that against limits on expression imposed by criminal penalties. Behind the distinction is a theory deeply etched in our law: a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand. It is always difficult to know in advance what an individual will say, and the line between legitimate and illegitimate speech is often so finely drawn that the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.
Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., Inc., 445 U.S. 308, 316 n. 13, 100 S.Ct. 1156, 1161 n. 13, 63 L.Ed.2d 413 (citations omitted). To force a purveyor of First Amendment materials whose speech has been stifled to wait months, if not years, for a court to pass judgment on his case is anathema to prior restraint law. See Kingsley Books, 354 U.S. at 438-443, 77 S.Ct. at 1326-29 (upholding procedural safeguards where statute required obscenity hearing within one day of charge, and judicial decision within two days of hearing). Moreover, under common law certiorari the government is as a general rule *1341not enjoined from prohibiting speech while the case is being appealed. Chicago profits by delay while the speaker and audience suffer.
The majority posits the curious argument that Illinois law prevents municipalities from specifying what form of judicial review an administrative decision must receive. Perhaps. But since when does a city gain special dispensation to violate the United States Constitution because a state law contradicts it? Under the Supremacy clause, the state law must give. Nor is it clear that Illinois law does prevent Chicago from specifying a form of prompt judicial review. The cases cited by the majority, Nowicki v. Evanston Fair Housing Review Board, 62 ILL.2d 11, 338 N.E.2d 186 (1975), and Quinlan & Tyson, Inc. v. City of Evanston, 25 Ill.App.3d 879, 324 N.E.2d 65 (1st Dist.1975), stand mainly for the proposition that Illinois cities lack the power to alter the jurisdiction of state circuit courts. This would not prevent the municipality from specifying an expedited procedure, or petitioning the state legislature for a minor change in the law, or even setting up an administrative review procedure at least to blunt the unfairness of having the Commissioner of Public Works act as the primary reviewer of his own decisions.
The majority’s approach to Graffs challenge is confusing indeed. After today’s decision, it is unclear who may bring facial challenges, whether licensing schemes directed at First Amendment activity are to be analyzed as prior restraints, whether a licensing restriction aimed purportedly only at the time, place and manner of speech must include procedural safeguards, and whether those safeguards must encompass prompt judicial review. Indeed, it is not even clear after today’s decision whether selling newspapers from anything other than a corner box implicates the First Amendment. While regulation of the typical modern newsstand, with its shabby mix of magazines specializing in pornography, tattoos and motorcycles, may not arouse passionate concern about the denial of free speech, newsstands remain an important sector of the newspaper industry, particularly in a big-city market such as Chicago. See amici curiae of Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc., publisher of USA Today. The city’s regulation thus strikes at the core of the First Amendment. I would hold that Chicago may regulate newsstands,3 but that its burden must be higher than what the Court requires today — a burden that the Chicago ordinance in its present form cannot meet because of the absence of judicial review. Because of the confusion that will inevitably flow from the majority decision, I respectfully dissent.

. The majority suggests that reliance on FW/PBS is misplaced because part of Justice O’Connor's opinion was joined by only two other justices. But three other justices concurred in the judgment and criticized Justice O’Connor's position because the procedural safeguards she prescribed were not strong enough!

. The Dallas ordinance is reprinted as an appendix to the district court's decision in FW/PBS. Dumas v. City of Dallas, 648 F.Supp. 1061, 1084-1085 (N.D.Tex.1986).

. The newsstand in question harmonizes with the appearance of the adjacent former Chicago Pub-lie Library, is set unobtrusively at the edge of one side of the building, does not interfere with its maintenance and does not block the sidewalk,