Court Opinion

ID: 9609382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:26:42.015033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:00.187827
License: Public Domain

Dimmick, J.
(concurring) — I concur in the result of the majority. I wish, however, to address the discussions of the majority (at page 64) and the dissent (at pages 73-79) relating to appellants' contentions that if they were allowed to present evidence that their activity was communicative such evidence would have established that their activities were exempt as "artistic or dramatic performances in a theater or a museum." Seattle Criminal Code 12A.10-.070(D).
In the Seattle Municipal Court appellants moved to dismiss the charges filed against them due to a denial of their constitutional rights under the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. The court ruled against their motions. Further, the court granted a motion in limine excluding all testimony that the behavior of appellants was communicative or expressive of ideas as being irrelevant to the constitutional issues. Upon their conviction appellants filed a writ of certiorari with the King County Superior Court rather than seeking their remedy of a de novo trial by that court. Appellants again argued that the ordinance violated their constitutional rights. Superior Court Judge Noe dismissed the writ and affirmed all convictions. Judge Noe spoke of the motion in limine in relation to the constitutional guaranty of freedom of expression agreeing that the evidence as to the communicative nature of the activity was irrelevant to the constitutional issues. Both Dore, J., and Stafford, J., discuss the constitutional *70issue involved at great length and no additional discussion is here necessary.
Appellants now contend that their conduct was within the ordinance's exemption for artistic or dramatic performances in theaters and the trial court should not have excluded the evidence as to the communicative nature of their conduct as it bore out their statutory argument. Appellants, however, never raised this issue until they reached this court. Accordingly, the argument is not timely and we should not consider it. I am puzzled by the assertion made by the dissent that appellants' constitutional claims necessarily included a claim that the conduct was exempt from the ordinance. The constitutional and statutory arguments are two separate contentions.
Utter, J., in his dissent, contends that without the excluded evidence the prosecution did not prove all of the essential elements of the crime and therefore we must consider appellants' statutory argument. I fail to see the merit of this argument.
The majority recognizes that the pivotal question with regard to the applicability of the statutory exemption is whether the place of performance is a theater or museum. If it is not, the content of the performances is irrelevant under the terms of the ordinance. The trial court never limited evidence as to whether the place of performance was a theater. Rather the motion in limine excluded only testimony as to the communicative or expressive nature of the conduct. In addition, the municipal court judge had before him the police reports describing the behavior, extensive photographs of the actual performances, affidavits describing the setting and background of the show, and had personally gone to the scene and inspected the booths and viewed the performance area. Following this extensive fact-finding process he found that the performance area was a "bed". This necessarily excludes a theater or museum as the court was required to find their absence in order to convict. The appellants first challenged this finding on appeal to this court. We should not consider the contention *71since it was not properly preserved, having been waived at the trial level.
In any event, there is substantial evidence in the record to support the judge's finding that the behavior was proscribed by the ordinance. The photographs, affidavits, and view of the scene gave him a peculiarly good grasp of the setting. The coin-booth arrangement itself was unlike any of the examples of theaters given in Seattle v. Buchanan, 90 Wn.2d 584, 596, 584 P.2d 918 (1978), in its isolation of the performers and its intermittent, 3-minutes-for-a-dollar viewing arrangement.