Court Opinion

ID: 9632610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:20:15.64314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:19.694395
License: Public Domain

CLARIE, District Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. It is not the ordinary function of the federal courts to interfere with the orderly process of state criminal justice. Only where exceptional circumstances occur, which impose oppressive and restrictive measures designed to stifle protest and clearly invade the protected constitutional rights of self-expression, should this Court intervene. This is not that case. The statute under attack has been the law of this State for 52 years and no one has demonstrated its bad faith misuse or the present likelihood of its causing irreparable harm to the petitioners. The Con*105nectieut courts should be given the first opportunity of deciding the statute’s constitutionality, under the state and federal constitution. No less a judicial scholar than Chief Justice Burger himself recently commented in a similar matter, not involving first amendment rights:
“(I)t seems to me a very odd business to strike down a state statute, on the books for 40 years more or less, without any opportunity for the state courts to dispose of the problem either under the (State) Constitution or the U. S. Constitution.” Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 440, 91 S.Ct. 507, 511, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (Jan. 19, 1971 dissent).
The majority’s action would strike down this statute as being unconstitutional on its face, completely divorced from any factual evidence likely to fully disclose the criminal conduct related to the pending state court prosecution. Such procedure severs from the Court’s consideration the provocative conduct, which purportedly accompanied the public display of Viet Cong flags, at a location proximate to a state-wide political gathering, where the President of the United States was present.
The relevant part of this law, as applied to the facts in this case, is not controlled by the so-called traditional “red flag” statute, because the Viet Cong flags used here are not so described. That flag has a field divided horizontally red over blue, with a large yellow star in the center. It is clearly distinguishable from the flag of North Vietnam, which has a plain red field with a similar yellow star. The substance of the relevant part of the statute to be applied here, prohibits the public use and display of any emblem or symbol calculated to or likely to incite disorders and breaches of the peace.
The plaintiffs identify Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117 (1931), as the only “red flag” case that has yet been decided by the Supreme Court. They point out that the Court in that instance overruled the California Supreme Court and held unconstitutional, that part of the state statute, Penal Code, § 403a, which forbade the display of a red flag, “as a * * * symbol * * * of opposition to organized government,” on the ground that it was overly broad and vague and infringed the right of free speech. However, they omit stating that the Court in that case did sustain the two relevant parts of that statute, which are applicable here. These sections made criminal the display of a red banner or other emblem to invite or stimulate anarchistic action (that is violent conduct) or to aid in revolutionary propaganda.
The Court said:
“There is no question but that the State may thus provide for the punishment of those who indulge in utterances which incite to violence and crime and threaten the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means. There is no constitutional immunity for such conduct abhorrent to our institutions. * * * We have no reason to doubt the validity of the second and third clauses of the statute as construed by the state court to relate to such incitements to violence." (underscoring added) (At 368-369, 51 S.Ct. at 535).
This statute far from regulating mere speech prohibits conduct, that also involves a speech activity. The issue here is comparable to that in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968), namely, whether in a situation where “speech” and “non-speech” elements are combined in the same court of conduct, there exists a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the non-speech element to justify limitations on first amendment freedoms.
“We emphatically reject the notion urged by appellant that the First and Fourteenth Amendments afford the same kind of freedom to those who would communicate ideas by conduct such as patrolling, marching, and picketing on streets and highways, as these amendments afford to those who communicate ideas by pure speech. *106* * * We reaffirm the statement of the Court in Giboney v. Empire Storage & lee Co., supra, 336 U.S. 490, at 502, 69 S.Ct. 684, 93 L.Ed. 834, that ‘it has never been deemed an abridgement of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed.’ ” Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 555, 85 S.Ct. 453, 464, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1964).
The Connecticut law prohibits the public display of any emblem as a symbol calculated or likely to incite disorders or breaches of the law. The circumstances of each incident raise factual issues upon which evidence is required, in order to properly test the constitutionality of the law’s application. By way of illustration, if one were to parade a Ku Klux Klan flag or other such emblem into an NAACP meeting it would quite likely provoke a riotous reaction; or to publicly carry a Nazi flag into a synagogue would certainly be calculated to incite disorder; or to display a Viet Cong flag at a political gathering of loyal Americans might well be calculated to provoke an incitement to violence. Contrary conclusions would be both unreal and naive. It is just such conduct that the State Legislature intended to regulate in the interest of public peace and tranquility.
The statute being challenged is not imprecise or overly broad; in fact its terms are not significantly different from those in the breach of peace statute. Conn.Gen.Stat. § 53-174 (1958). That law defines as criminal similar conduct to that which is being challenged here. It provides in part:
“Any person who disturbs or breaks the peace by tumultuous and offensive carriage, noise or behavior, or by threatening, traducing, quarreling with, challenging, assaulting or striking another or disturbs or breaks the peace, or provokes contention, by following or mocking any person, with abusive or indecent language, gestures or noise * *
This latter statute has been previously declared constitutional on its face. Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society v. Bristol, 24 F.Supp. 57 (D.Conn.) aff’d per curiam 305 U.S. 572, 59 S.Ct. 246, 83 L.Ed. 361 (1938), as well as by the present panel. See, Barber v. Kinsella, 277 F.Supp. 72 (D.Conn.1967). An analagous state statute relating to incitement to violence, § 53-44, was also found constitutional by the same panel. It prescribed criminal penalties for anyone who “advocates, encourages, justifies, praises, incites or solicits any assault upon * * * the police * * The Court found that the law was:
“(N)either overbroad nor vague, nor does it, though precise, penalize constitutionally protected conduct. To encourage an assault on a policeman or individual is ‘likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, unrest * * *.’ ” Turner v. LaBelle, 251 F.Supp. 443, 446 (D.Conn.1966, 3-Judge District Court).
The challenged statute has a valid public purpose to preserve the public order ; and it describes with adequate precision the type of emblems or symbols prohibited. See, Musser v. Utah, 333 U.S. 95, 97, 68 S.Ct. 397, 92 L.Ed. 562 (1948). Since the punishment imposed would only be invoked for an act “knowingly done” with the purpose of doing that which the statute prohibits, the accused cannot be said to suffer from any lack of warning or knowledge, that the act which he commits is in violation of the law. Juries regularly evaluate the factual elements related to the proof of criminal conduct under the court’s charge and guidance. This statute presents to the Court no unusual burden. I would find the law constitutional as written.