Court Opinion

ID: 9431429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:16.326045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:00.390803
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
The Court today sets out the appropriate legal tests and standards governing the question presented, and proceeds to apply most of them correctly. Kegrettably, though, the Court errs in the final step of its analysis, and approves an ordinance banning significantly more speech than is necessary to achieve the government’s substantial and legitimate goal. Accordingly, I must dissent.
The ordinance before us absolutely prohibits picketing “before or about” any residence in the town of Brookfield, *492thereby restricting a manner of speech in a traditional public forum.1 Consequently, as the Court correctly states, the ordinance is subject to the well-settled time, place, and manner test: the restriction must be content and viewpoint neutral,2 leave open ample alternative channels of communication, and be narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest. Ante, at 482; Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45 (1983).
Assuming one construes the ordinance as the Court does,3 I agree that the regulation reserves ample alternative channels of communication. Ante, at 482-484. I also agree with the Court that the town has a substantial interest in protecting its residents’ right to be left alone in their homes. Ante, at 484-485; Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 470-471 (1980). It is, however, critical to specify the precise scope of this interest. The mere fact that speech takes place in a residential neighborhood does not automatically implicate a residential privacy interest. It is the intrusion of speech into the *493home or the unduly coercive nature of a particular manner of speech around the home that is subject to more exacting regulation. Thus, the intrusion into the home of an unwelcome solicitor, Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 (1943), or unwanted mail, Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728 (1970), may be forbidden. Similarly, the government may forbid the intrusion of excessive noise into the home, Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949), or, in appropriate circumstances, perhaps even radio waves, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726 (1978). Similarly, the government may prohibit unduly coercive conduct around the home, even though it involves expressive elements. A crowd of protesters need not be permitted virtually to imprison a person in his or her own house merely because they shout slogans or carry signs. But so long as the speech remains outside the home and does not unduly coerce the occupant, the government's heightened interest in protecting residential privacy is not implicated. See Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, 420 (1971).
The foregoing distinction is crucial here because it directly affects the last prong of the time, place, and manner test: whether the ordinance is narrowly tailored to achieve the governmental interest. I do not quarrel with the Court’s reliance on City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789 (1984), for the proposition that a blanket prohibition of a manner of speech in particular public fora may nonetheless be “narrowly tailored” if in each case the manner of speech forbidden necessarily produces the very “evil” the government seeks to eradicate. Ante, at 485-486; Vincent, 466 U. S., at 808; id., at 830 (Brennan, J., dissenting). However, the application of this test requires that the government demonstrate that the offending aspects of the prohibited manner of speech cannot be separately, and less intrusively, controlled. Thus here, if the intrusive and unduly coercive elements of residential picketing can be eliminated without simultaneously eliminating residential picket*494ing completely, the Brookfield ordinance fails the Vincent test.
Without question there are many aspects of residential picketing that, if unregulated, might easily become intrusive or unduly coercive. Indeed, some of these aspects are illustrated by this very case. As the District Court found, before the ordinance took effect up to 40 sign-carrying, slogan-shouting protesters regularly converged on Dr. Victoria’s home and, in addition to protesting, warned young children not to go near the house because Dr. Victoria was a “baby killer.” Further, the throng repeatedly trespassed onto the Victorias’ property and at least once blocked the exits to their home. 619 F. Supp. 792, 795 (ED Wis. 1985). Surely it is within the government’s power to enact regulations as necessary to prevent such intrusive and coercive abuses. Thus, for example, the government could constitutionally regulate the number of residential picketers, the hours during which a residential picket may take place, or the noise level of such a picket. In short, substantial regulation is permitted to neutralize the intrusive or unduly coercive aspects of picketing around the home. But to say that picketing may be substantially regulated is not to say that it may be prohibited in its entirety. Once size, time, volume, and the like have been controlled to ensure that the picket is no longer intrusive or coercive, only the speech itself remains, conveyed perhaps by a lone, silent individual, walking back and forth with a sign. Cf. NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, 447 U. S. 607, 618 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in result). Such speech, which no longer implicates the heightened governmental interest in residential privacy, is nevertheless banned by the Brookfield law. Therefore, the ordinance is not narrowly tailored.
The Court nonetheless attempts to justify the town’s sweeping prohibition. Central to the Court’s analysis is the determination that:
*495“[I]n contrast [to other forms of communication], the picketing [here] is narrowly directed at the household, not the public. The type of picketers banned by the Brookfield ordinance generally do not seek to disseminate a message to the general public, but to intrude upon the targeted resident, and to do so in an especially offensive way. Moreover, even if some such picketers have a broader communicative purpose, their activity nonetheless inherently and offensively intrudes on residential privacy.” Ante, at 486.
That reasoning is flawed. First, the ordinance applies to all picketers, not just those engaged in the protest giving rise to this challenge. Yet the Court cites no evidence to support its assertion that picketers generally, or even appel-lees specifically, desire to communicate only with the “targeted resident.” (In fact, the District Court, on the basis of an uncontradicted affidavit, found that appellees sought to communicate with both Dr. Victoria and with the public. 619 F. Supp., at 795.) While picketers’ signs might be seen from the resident’s house, they are also visible to passersby. To be sure, the audience is limited to those within sight of the picket, but focusing speech does not strip it of constitutional protection. Even the site-specific aspect of the picket identifies to the public the object of the picketers’ attention. Cf. Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 331 (1988). Nor does the picketers’ ultimate goal — to influence the resident’s conduct — change the analysis; as the Court held in Keefe, supra, at 419, such a goal does not defeat First Amendment protection.
A second flaw in the Court’s reasoning is that it assumes that the intrusive elements of a residential picket are “inherent.” However, in support of this crucial conclusion the Court only briefly examines the effect of a narrowly tailored ordinance: “[E]ven a solitary picket can invade residential privacy. See Carey, supra, at 478-479 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (‘Whether . . . alone or accompanied by others . . . there are few of us that would feel comfortable knowing that *496a stranger lurks outside our home’).” Ante, at 487 (ellipses in Court’s opinion). The Court’s reference to the Carey dissent, its sole support for this assertion, conjures up images of a “lurking” stranger, secreting himself or herself outside a residence like a thief in the night, threatening physical harm. This hardly seems an apt depiction of a solitary picket, especially at midafternoon, whose presence is objectionable because it is notorious. Contrary to the Court’s declaration in this regard, it seems far more likely that a picketer who truly desires only to harass those inside a particular residence will find that goal unachievable in the face of a narrowly tailored ordinance substantially limiting, for example, the size, time, and volume of the protest. If, on the other hand, the picketer intends to communicate generally, a carefully crafted ordinance will allow him or her to do so without intruding upon or unduly harassing the resident. Consequently, the discomfort to which the Court must refer is merely that of knowing there is a person outside who disagrees with someone inside. This may indeed be uncomfortable, but it does not implicate the town’s interest in residential privacy and therefore does not warrant silencing speech.
A valid time, place, or manner law neutrally regulates speech only to the extent necessary to achieve a substantial governmental interest, and no further. Because the Court is unwilling to examine the Brookfield ordinance in light of the precise governmental interest at issue, it condones a law that suppresses substantially more speech than is necessary. I dissent.

The Court today soundly rejects the town’s rogue argument that residential streets are something less than public fora. Ante, at 479-481. I wholeheartedly agree with this portion of the Court’s opinion.

 The Court relies on our “two-court rule” to avoid appellees’ argument that state law creates a labor picketing exception to the Brookfield ordinance, and thus that the law is not content neutral. Ante, at 481-482. However, I would not be as quick to apply the rule here. The District Court’s opinion focuses solely on the language and history of the town ordinance and does not refer to state law, 619 F. Supp. 792, 796 (ED Wis. 1985); the panel simply deferred to the District Court; and the en banc court issued no opinion. I cannot find even one court, let alone two, that has clearly passed on appellees’ argument. Cf. Virginia v. American Booksellers Assn., 484 U. S. 383, 395 (1988). However, nothing in the Court’s opinion forecloses consideration of this question on remand.

 Like Justice White, I am wary of the Court’s rather strained “single-residence” construction of the ordinance. Moreover, I give little weight to the town attorney’s interpretation of the law; his legal interpretations do not bind the state courts, and therefore they cannot bind us. American Booksellers, supra, at 395. However, for purposes of this dissent, I will accept the Court’s reading.