Court Opinion

ID: 9850476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:57:57.892654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:37.841226
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH, C. J.,
concurring.
I concur in Judge Young’s majority opinion. However, if the Oregon Supreme Court had not precluded it, I would hold the statute unconstitutional under Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution, which provides:
“No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right. — ”
Those words are so clear that there is nothing about them to be construed. However, the Oregon Supreme Court, in *406State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 649 P2d 569 (1982); In re Lasswell, 296 Or 121, 673 P2d 855 (1983); and State v. Moyle, 299 Or 691, 705 P2d 740 (1985), has refused to read the words for what they plainly say. Instead, the court has made the existence of an “historical exception” the first point of inquiry in determining whether a statute which is directed at the content of speech or writing is valid. The most complete statement of that judicial addition to the constitution appears in In re Lasswell, supra, 296 Or at 124:
“Recent decisions have explained that this guarantee forecloses the enactment of prohibitory laws, at least in the form of outright prohibitions backed by punitive sanctions, that in terms forbids speech or writing ‘on any subject whatever,’ unless it can be shown that the prohibition falls within an original or modern version of a historically established exception that was. not meant to be ended by the liberating principles and purposes for which the constitutional guarantees of free expression were adopted. See State v. Robertson/Young * * (Emphasis supplied.)
At the time that Article I, section 8, was adopted, there was a territorial statute that provided:
“If any person shall import, print, publish, sell or distribute any book or any pamphlet, ballad, printed paper or other thing containing obscene language or obscene prints, pictures, figures, or other descriptions, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth, or shall introduce into any family, school or place of education, or shall buy, procure, receive, or have in his possession, any such book, pamphlet, ballad, printed paper or other thing, either for the purpose of loan, sale, exhibition or circulation, or with intent to introduce the same into any family, school, or place of education, he shall, on conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than six, nor less than three months, or by a fine not more than three hundred, nor less than fifty dollars.” Statutes of the Territory of Oregon, Ch XI, § 10 (1854).
In the face of the language from Lasswell, and the quoted statute, this court is not free to read the Oregon Constitution as it is written. Instead, Article I, section 8, turns out to exist .in an historical straitjacket that makes any “liberating principle” very difficult to perceive, let alone implement.
Buttler, J., and Gillette, J., pro tempore, join in this opinion.