Court Opinion

ID: 9624220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:54:36.681673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:41.303023
License: Public Domain

BIRD, C. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur with the majority in rejecting petitioner’s challenges to the constitutionality of rule 31.1 agree that the commission’s decision to terminate petitioner’s existing telephone service was correct. However, I cannot join that portion of the majority *671opinion which finds the commission’s order, directing General Telephone and Pacific Telephone and Telegraph to.“refuse new business service to [petitioner] or any entity in which he has financial or managerial control, at any location in California, without further order of this Commission,” to be proper. (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 665-666, fn. 15.) This order is consistent neither with the Constitution nor with the commission’s own rules.
It is clear from the record that all the evidence before the magistrate and the commission pertained to petitioner’s prior use of his telephone service. No evidence was presented that petitioner had applied for new business service or how he might use such service. Nevertheless, the commission concluded that there was a “reasonable probability” that restoration of telephone service would lead to a resumption of his illegal activity. The sole basis for the commission’s conclusion was petitioner’s belief that prostitution should be legalized.
On this record, the commission issued what amounts to a blanket prior refusal of business telephone service to petitioner. Since the record did not indicate the circumstances under which petitioner might seek telephone service in the future, the commission simply speculated as to the subject matter of his future conversations. Based on that speculation, the commission precluded petitioner from securing future service, which is available to everyone else for the asking.
This court has recognized that telephone service is “an essential means of communication” and that access to such service implicates the First Amendment. (Sokol v. Public Utilities Commission (1966) 65 Cal.2d 247, 255 [53 Cal.Rptr. 673, 418. P.2d 265].) In curtailing petitioner’s future telephone service, the commission imposed a prior restraint on petitioner’s ability to speak. It is indisputable that prior restraints on speech are “the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights.” (Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart (1976) 427 U.S. 539, 559 [49 L.Ed.2d 683, 697, 96 S.Ct. 2791]; see Near v. Minnesota (1931) 283 U.S. 697, 712-714 [75 L.Ed. 1357, 1365-1367, 51 S.Ct. 625.]; New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) 403 U.S. 713, 714 [29 L.Ed.2d 822, 825, 91 S.Ct. 2140]; Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n (1973) 413 U.S. 376,-390 [37 L.Ed.2d 669, 679-680, 93 S.Ct. 2553].) Since no extraordinary circumstance has been established here that would justify such a prior restraint, that part of the commission’s order cannot stand. (Cf. People ex rel. Busch v. Projection Room Theater (1976) 17 Cal.3d 42, 58-59 [130 *672Cal.Rptr. 328, 550 P.2d 600]; Perrine v. Municipal Court (1971) 5 Cal.3d 656, 663-665 [97 Cal.Rptr. 320, 488 P.2d 648].)1
The impropriety of the commission’s order is evident when the order is examined in light of the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court in Pittsburgh Press. That court upheld a local ruling which prohibited newspapers from publishing sex segregated “help-wanted” advertisements. However, the court was careful to state that nothing in its opinion should be construed to prohibit other advertisements, or criticisms or analyses of the ordinance or its enforcement. (Id., at p. 391 [37 L.Ed.2d at p. 680].) Thus, the limitation on future expressions was carefully limited to clearly unlawful commercial speech. In contrast, based solely on petitioner’s past conduct, the commission refused to allow petitioner any new business telephone service without its approval. It is as if the Supreme Court in Pittsburgh Press had forbidden the publication of any advertisement without prior government approval. Such a blanket prior restraint was not proposed because it is clearly incompatible with the protections afforded by the First Amendment.
However, the majority assert that no supervening First Amendment interest is involved because the commission’s order affects only “purely commercial speech.” (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 665-666, fn. 15.) The majority are sadly mistaken, for the commission’s ban on future service is not carefully tailored to “speech which does ‘no more than propose a commercial transaction,’ [citation]. . . .” ( Va. Pharmacy Bd. v. Va. Consumer Council (1976) 425 U.S. 748, 762 [48 L.Ed.2d 346, 358, 96 S.Ct. 1817].) It prohibits all business telephone service, absent the commission’s approval. The commission has thereby prevented petitioner from using this essential means of communication to facilitate clearly political expressions or wholly legitimate enterprises.
Ironically, the commission had a ready model for satisfying its concern that petitioner would use future telephone service to further illegal *673activities. Rule 31 permits law enforcement authorities to seek to prevent new service from being extended to petitioner if he applies for new service. At that time, petitioner’s intended use would be manifest. This procedure is identical to that established for the termination of existing service, requiring a probable cause hearing before a neutral magistrate and placing on law enforcement officials the burden of justifying a denial of service.2 The rule, as modified by the majority opinion, also establishes the standards to be used by the commission in determining whether new service should be refused.
The commission eschewed this detailed procedure in favor of a more restrictive alternative, which lacks the safeguards found in rule 31. (Cf. Shelton v. Tucker (1960) 364 U.S. 479, 488 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 237, 81 S.Ct. 247].) The commission’s order eliminates the burden on law enforcement authorities to establish before a neutral magistrate that “probable cause exists to believe that the use ... to be made of the service is prohibited by law . . . .” Every use is presumptively tainted. Further, instead of requiring law enforcement authorities to justify interfering with petitioner’s telephone service, the commission has saddled petitioner with the burden of applying to the commission to secure the means to communicate, and apparently the burden of convincing the commission of the legality of any proposed use.3 This shift not only disregards the mandate in rule 31, but violates petitioner’s right to due process of law. (See Freedman v. Maryland (1965) 380 U.S. 51, 58 [13 L.Ed.2d 649, 654, 85 S.Ct. 734].) Finally, the commission’s order provides no standards for *674determining whether petitioner is entitled to receive new service. Such a standardless administrative procedure involving the exercise of First Amendment rights is impermissible. (See, e.g., Perrine v. Municipal Court, supra, 5 Cal.3d at pp. 661-662.)
For these reasons, I am compelled to conclude that the commission’s order goes too far. Therefore, I would strike that portion of the order which directs the telephone companies to refuse future service to petitioner.
Mosk, J., and Newman, J., concurred.

In Busch, an injunction was requested by law enforcement authorities to prohibit defendants from operating bookstores and movie theaters which had exhibited and sold obscene material. The court held that such action would constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint. “We are aware of no reported cases authorizing the closing of a bookstore or theater, even after it has been repeatedly determined judicially in a full adversary hearing that all or substantially all of the magazines or films exhibited or sold therein are obscene. . . . [W]e emphasize that the closing of such bookstores or theaters, either temporarily or permanently, or the enjoining of the exhibition or sale on said premises of magazines or films not specifically so determined to be obscene, constitutes an impermissible prior restraint in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” (Busch, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 59.)

The pertinent part of rule 31 provides:
“1. Any communications utility operating under the jurisdiction of this Commission shall refuse service to a new applicant, and shall disconnect existing service to a subscriber, upon receipt from any authorized official of a law enforcement agency of a writing, signed by a magistrate, as defined by Penal Code Sections 807 and 808, finding that probable cause exists to believe that the use made or to be made of the service is prohibited by law, or that the service is being or is to be used as an instrumentality, directly or indirectly, to violate or to assist in the violation of the law.
“4. Any concerned law enforcement agency shall have the right to Commission notice of any hearing held by the Commission pursuant to paragraph 2 of this rule, and shall have the right to participate therein, including the right to present evidence and argument and to present and cross-examine witnesses. Such law enforcement agency shall be entitled to receive copies of all notices and orders issued in such proceeding and shall have both (1) the burden of proving that the use made or to be made of the service is prohibited by law, or that the service is being or is to be used as an instrumentality, directly or indirectly, to violate or to assist in the violation of the law, and (2) the burden of persuading the Commission that the service should be refused or should not be restored.”

The commission’s decision provides that it will allow new service only “if we are convinced that [petitioner] is not resuming the use of telephone service to facilitate violation of the law.” (Dec. No. 87642, p. 35.)