Court Opinion

ID: 9700040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:07:17.322775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:03.159187
License: Public Domain

MERHIGE, District Judge, concurring.
I concur with the views expressed in Judge Bryan’s succinct and learned opinion and write briefly in response to the dissent of my colleague, Judge Warriner.
While concluding it fruitless to address in any detail the views expressed in the dissent, I suggest that adoption of those views would, to a great extent, represent a rejection of Virginia’s highest court’s expressed opinion of its statutory and inherent enforcement authority. See Button v. Day, 204 Va. 547, 132 S.E.2d 292.
I decline, out of respect for the opinions of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as a duty to follow the law as enunciated by the Supreme Court, to ignore that of which I have judicial notice. See Gormly v. Bunyan, 138 U.S. 623, 635,11 S.Ct. 453, 457, 34 L.Ed. 1086 (1890); Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 657, 16 S.Ct. 132, 134, 40 L.Ed. 293 (1895).
Additionally, contra to Judge Warriner’s expressed statements, the record amply supports and mandates the action the court this day takes.
Lest, however, one mistakenly attributes this response as a total rejection of the statements contained in the dissent, I acknowledge my concurrence with Judge Warriner’s view that “Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights were thwarted... . ” The complete statement reads, “Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights were thwarted, but were not ‘chilled’ ”.1 If, as I conclude, it is intended to suggest that a “thwarting” of one’s First Amendment rights is less onerous than the “chilling” of one’s First Amendment rights, my rejection is total.

. Footnote 9 of the dissent.