Court Opinion

ID: 9786986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:07:48.159946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:50.918481
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J., Concurring.
I join fully in the majority opinion. I write separately only to point out that if a defendant were to be enjoined from repeating statements already determined to be defamatory, such a defendant may not only move the court to modify or dissolve the injunction based on a change in circumstances or context, as the majority notes, but may also speak out, notwithstanding the injunction, and assert the present truth of those statements as a defense in any subsequent prosecution for violation of the injunction. (People v. Gonzalez (1996) 12 Cal.4th 804, 818 [50 Cal.Rptr.2d 74, 910 P.2d 1366] [“this court has firmly established that a person subject to a court’s injunction may elect whether to challenge the constitutional validity of the injunction when it is issued, or to reserve that claim until a violation of the injunction is charged as a contempt of court”]; see In re Berry (1968) 68 Cal.2d 137, 149-150 [65 Cal.Rptr. 273, 436 P.2d 273].)
Our decision thus does not require a citizen to obtain government permission before speaking truthfully. In this respect, California law “is ‘considerably more consistent with the exercise of First Amendment freedoms’ than that of other jurisdictions that have adopted the so-called collateral bar rule barring collateral attack on injunctive orders.” (People v. Gonzalez, supra, 12 Cal.4th at p. 819, quoting In re Berry, supra, 68 Cal.2d at p. 150.)
George, C. J., and Chin, J., concurred.