Court Opinion

ID: 9599608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:19:59.950903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:45.857729
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(dissenting) — For the reasons stated hereinafter, I cannot in good conscience agree with the majority opinion.
I would be the first to concede that the performance *673engaged in by appellant Marshall would, in all probability, offend the sensitivities of a majority of Seattle’s citizenry.' However, it is not a proper exercise of this court’s authority to stretch the meaning and intendment of an inapplicable ordinance to reach béhavior which citizens, or for that matter members of the court, privately or personally may feel should be proscribed. It may well be that the indicated reprehensible societal behavior should be circumscribed, but that is the role of the legislative branch of local or state government.
At the outset, to place this case in proper perspective, it should be established what this case is and what it is not. First, the case involves a charge of indecent exposure brought under a Seattle city ordinance. Second, the defendants are not charged with the violation of an obscenity ordinance, cf. Seattle v. Hinkley, 83 Wn.2d 205, 517 P.2d 592 (1973), nor are they alleged to have violated the applicable state obscenity statute, RCW 9.68.010. The majority opinion notwithstanding, the only problem involved in this case is the interpretation of the indecent exposure ordinance as it applies to appellants, and no amount of emotionalism can change the facts and the relevant legal issues.
The Seattle city ordinance which appellants are alleged to have violated provides as follows:
12.11.220 Indecent exposure. It is unlawful for any person to appear in a state of nudity, or in any indecent or lewd dress, or make any indecent exposure of his person, or to expose his private parts to public view, or be guilty of any lewd act or behavior in any place exposed to public view. (Ord. 16046 § 21; May 23,1907).
The ordinance renders criminal the exposure of “private parts to public view.” To determine the applicability of this ordinance, it must first be determined what constitutes “public view.” An identical question of interpretation was presented to the Supreme Court of California in Barrows v. Municipal Court, 1 Cal. 3d 821, 464 P.2d 483, 83 Cal. Rptr. 819 (1970). In that case, several members of the cast of a play which involved the graphic simulation of oral inter*674course were charged with violation of a statute which prohibited “lewd or dissolute conduct in any public place or in any place open to the public or exposed to public view.” Barrows v. Municipal Court, supra at 823 n.1. The California court held that the statute before it had no application to theatrical performances, i.e., performances in a commercial theater. Cf. Crownover v. Musick, 9 Cal. 3d 405, 509 P.2d 497, 107 Cal. Rptr. 681 (1973). Likewise, a New York court concluded that a statute forbidding “indecent exposure” did not apply to performances in a theater. People v. Conrad, 70 Misc. 2d 408, 334 N.Y.S.2d 180 (Buffalo City Ct. 1972). In a similar decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals held a Detroit “indecent exposure” ordinance inapplicable to “topless go-go dancing.” Jads, Inc. v. Detroit, 41 Mich. App. 693, 200 N.W.2d 715 (1972).
Does the term “public view” appertain to the exposure of private parts behind the closed doors of the New Paris Theater? I think not. The Seattle ordinance, enacted in 1907, apparently was drafted to protect the public from being affronted in the public parks, on public thoroughfares, and in other unquestionably public places by those who exposed themselves to public view. Thus, the conduct engaged in by appellant Marshall would clearly have been proscribed by the ordinance had it occurred upon the public streets, or if it could have been viewed from a public thoroughfare. The consenting adults who had willingly paid for the privilege of watching the performance here involved are not the class of unsuspecting citizens the ordinance was designed to protect.
The majority attempts to finesse the ordinance’s explicit requirement of a “public view” of any exposure of private parts or lewd act by stating that the theater was a public place.1 Of course, it is! But, that, in itself, does not render *675the subject performance exposed to public view — it still may not be viewed from the public domain.2
If we are to take the majority at its word, it would be entirely proper for a citizen of Seattle or the police to file a valid complaint against any theatrical performance which offended their personal sense of morality.3
In conclusion, this court unanimously recently reiterated the cardinal principal of statutory construction that criminal sanctions must be narrowly construed in a manner most favorable to the defendant, State v. Bell, 83 Wn.2d 383, 518 P.2d 696 (1974). It is apparent, therefore, that the activities engaged in by appellants did not violate Seattle Code *67612.11.220.4 I am convinced that the judgment of the superior court should be reversed.
Wright and Utter, JJ., concur with Finley, J.
Petition for rehearing denied June 24, 1974.

The majority bulwarks its “public place” assertion with the case of State v. Jones, 9 Wn. App. 1, 511 P.2d 74 (1973), which involved the application of the state vagrancy statute, RCW 9.87.010(7) to activities within the confines of a massage parlor. In that case, there was no *675requirement that the offending conduct take place in a public place, and the Court of Appeals refused to impose one. I agree with its characterization in dictum that a massage parlor is a public place, but I cannot understand what the Jones case has to do with an ordinance which requires “public view” of the offending behavior.

To stretch the majority’s rationale one more step, it could be hypothesized that since members of the public pay to enter the theater, the presence of these admittees would render the performances subject to the requisite “public view.” However, this stretches logic too far. Upon paying admission to the New Paris Theater, the admittee becomes, in the eyes of the law, an invitee and is, ex hypothesi, no longer a member of the general public.

Theatrical performances which may fall in the minds of some within this class include: Ballets: the renowned performance of Ted Shawn in “Adonis” (performed in 1932); the Royal Danish Ballet in “The Triumph of Death”; and renditions of Nikolais’ “The Relay” (performed for viewing on the BBC and New York’s WNET/13), Harkarvy’s “Squares”, Smuin’s “The Eternal Idol”, Lichine’s “Cain and Abel”, the Netherlands Dance Theater in “Mutations”, and the “Bach Suite”. Operas: the performances of sopranos Arlene Saunders in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci” (performed at Kennedy Center) and Grace Bumbry in “Salome”; and production of Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel”. Plays: Zero MosteTs performance in “Ulysses in Nighttown” and that of Sarah Stephenson as Desdemona in “Othello”; the Broadway play of “Grin and Bear It”; and the off-Broadway plays of “Hair”, “Oh Calcutta”, and “Dark of the Moon”.

 I note that in the intervening period following the convictions in the case at bar, the Superior Court for King County has rendered a declaratory judgment holding that Seattle Code 12.11.220 is inapplicable to similar performances at the New Paris Theater. Taylor v. Seattle, King County Cause No. 761928 (Super. Ct. Mar. 21, 1973), related appeal pending, Court of Appeals, Division One, Cause No. 2604-I.