People v. Duffy
People v. Duffy
Opinion of the Court
We are called upon, in this appeal, to determine upon which side of a fairly well defined line a provision of the Los Angeles Municipal Code falls which prohibits the holding of a procession or parade, on any public street, without a, permit from the Board of Police Commissioners,’ no standard being set up in the code by which the Jmard is required to measure its decision. We have dtoncluded that this case is governed by the principle that legislation is unconstitutional which attempts to make the free*, trade in ideas dependent upon that which, insofar as the legislation speaks, may be an arbitrary decision of an official or official^ body; that those cases which find no fault when such legislation restricts other activities than those involving the expression of ideas, are not applicable.
The appeal is by the People. To a count of a complaint charging that some twenty-six defendants had violated the
Section 23.10(a) of the Los Angeles Municipal Code provides : “No person shall hold, conduct, manage, participate in or carry on any parade, march or procession on any street in the City, or beat any drum, gong, triangle, tambourine, or blow, use or play any wind or stringed musical instrument upon any street in the City, unless such person has first made written application for and received from the Board [of Police Commissioners] a permit in writing authorizing such person so to do. All applications for such permits shall set forth:
“ (1) The route along which any such parade, march or procession proposes to travel;
“ (2) The time of the proposed starting of same ;
“ (3) The names of the persons in control of the same or responsible therefor;
“ (4) The purpose of such parade or procession. ’ ’
We find, as we consider the principles involved in this case, that there is a very clean cut distinction made, at some points, between that which may be constitutionally legislated affecting traffic in ideas and that which may be adopted respecting traffic in things. We find an example of it in this statement of a unanimous court in Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942), 316 U.S. 52, 54 [62 S.Ct. 920, 86 L.Ed. 1262, 1265] : “1. This court has unequivocally held that the streets are proper places for the exercise of the freedom of communicating information and disseminating opinion and that, though the states and municipalities may appropriately regulate the privilege in the public interest, they may not unduly burden or proscribe its employment in these public thoroughfares. We are equally clear that the Constitution imposes no such restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising.” A like distinction was recognized in Pittsford v. City of Los Angeles (1942), 50 Cal.App.2d 25 [122 P.2d 535].
Dealing now with cases involving legislation of the character before us, that is, legislation which makes a course of
In Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization (1939), 307 U.S. 496 [59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423], among other things, an ordinance was involved which, by its terms, provided that no public parade or public assembly should take place in the public streets or public parks, without a permit from the Director of Public Safety. If a permit was requested, the director was left with far less latitude than is the Board of Police Commissioners under the provisions of the Municipal Code before us, for the ordinance declared that a request for a permit should only be refused “for the purpose of preventing riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage.” We think the court’s view sufficiently appears from these words of Mr. Justice Roberts (307 U.S. 515, 516, 83 L.Ed. 1436, 1437) : “Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have
Again, in Schneider v. Irvington (1939), 308 U.S. 147 [60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155], the Supreme Court, with one dissenting vote, struck down an ordinance which, among other things, prohibited the distribution of circulars without a permit from the chief of police. The applicant was to give his name, address and other means of identifying himself, and a permit could be denied if the Chief was satisfied that the applicant was not of good character or that he was acting upon behalf of a project “not free from fraud.” The court condemned the ordinance in these words: (308 U.S. 163, 164, 84 L.Ed. 166) “It bans unlicensed communication of any views or the advocacy of any cause from door to door, and permits canvassing only subject to the power of a police officer to determine, as a censor, what literature may be distributed from house to house and who may distribute it. The applicant must submit to that officer’s judgment evidence as to his good character and as to the absence of fraud in the ‘project’ he proposes to promote or the literature he intends to distribute, and must undergo a burdensome and inquisitorial examination, including photographing and fingerprinting. In the end, his liberty to communicate with the residents of the town at their homes depends upon the exercise of the officer’s discretion.
A state statute prohibiting the solicitation of funds for any religious, charitable or philanthropic cause, unless the cause had been approved by the secretary of the public welfare council, was the subject matter under discussion in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), 310 U.S. 296 [60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 128 A.L.R. 1352], We quote one passage from the unanimous opinion of the court (310 U.S. 306, 84 L.Ed. 1219) : “It is suggested that the statute is to be read as requiring the officer to issue a certificate unless the cause in question is clearly not a religious one; and that if he violates his duty his action will be corrected by a court.
“To this suggestion there are several sufficient answers. The line between a discretionary and a ministerial act is not always easy to mark and the statute has not been construed by the State court to impose a mere ministerial duty on the secretary of the welfare council. Upon his decision as to the nature of the cause, the right to solicit depends. Moreover, 'the availability of a judicial remedy for abuses in the system of licensing still leaves that system one of previous restraint which, in the field of free speech and press, we have held inadmissible. A statute authorizing previous restraint upon the exercise of the guaranteed freedom by judicial decision after trial is as obnoxious to the Constitution as one providing for like restraint by administrative action. ’ ’
Another case falls in line with those we have been listing. In Largent v. Texas (1943), 318 U.S. 418 [63 S.Ct. 667, 87 L.Ed. 873], the cqurt said of an ordinance which declared it to be unlawful to sell books without a permit from the mayor, who was to issue the permit if he deemed it proper or advisable, after a thorough investigation (318 U.S. 422, 87 L.Ed. 877): “. . . this appeal is governed by recent deci
In concluding this phase of our discussion, we refer to Thomas v. Collins (1944), 323 U.S. 516 [65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430], only to note that it held invalid a provision interpreted as requiring a permit as a prerequisite to addressing a lawful assemblage, although, apparently, the permit could be had for the asking.
Up to this point we have been considering cases dealing with legislation which required an official permit as a condition precedent to the exercise of one form or another of the right freely to communicate ideas, but set up no sufficient standard, and we have found that the United States Supreme Court has uniformally condemned such legislation as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. Now we come to a number of cases, decided by the appellate courts of this state, which, dealing with ordinances requiring permits for activities not involving free speech or any cognate right, hold them to be valid. Many of these cases do have some primary standard set up to control the discretion bestowed upon the permit-issuing official, and might be omitted from our list on that ground, but we err on the safe side by including them in the group: In re Flaherty (1895), 105 Cal. 558 [38 P. 981, 27 L.R.A. 529] (beating a drum on a traveled street); Ex parte Luening (1906), 3 Cal.App. 76 [84 P. 445] (carrying a concealed weapon) ; Goytino v. McAleer (1906), 4 Cal.App. 655 [88 P. 991] (conducting pool room) ; Hood v. Melrose (1914), 24 Cal.App. 355 [141 P. 396] (erect a shake house) ; In re Holmes (1921), 187 Cal. 640 [203 P. 398] (conduct a secondhand business) ; Parker v. Colburn (1925), 196 Cal. 169 [236 P. 921] (erect public garage) ; South Pasadena v. San Gabriel (1933), 134 Cal.App. 403, 406 [25 P.2d 516] (drill for water) ; In re Hartmann (1938), 25 Cal.App.2d 55, 60 [76 P.2d 709] (solicit subscriptions of magazines); In re Jones
For reasons which will be stated at once, we are not attempting to analyze the various California decisions to see whether they can be reconciled and a principle discovered. We make no comment upon them other than to note that throughout the cases holding valid the ordinances considered, the thought finds frequent expression which is contained in these words in In re Hartmann, supra, 25 Cal.App.2d 55, 60 [76 P.2d 709] : “We may not assume the chief of police will arbitrarily refuse to grant permits to canvass for subscriptions without good cause. The presumption is that every officer will perform his full duty in a fair and lawful manner. (In re Flaherty, 105 Cal. 558, 562 [38 P. 981, 27 L.R.A. 529]. . . .)”
We are not undertaking the task of analyzing these California cases touching upon the problem before us because we have a late pronouncement from our Supreme Court which makes such effort needless. In the case of In re Porterfield (1945), 28 Cal.2d 91 [168 P.2d 706], a city ordinance was held to be void which declared it to be unlawful for any person to solicit membership (for compensation) in any dues requiring organization, without a permit from the city council. An attempt was made in the ordinance to set up a standard by which the council was to guide itself, but the Supreme Court held it to be insufficient to rescue the ordinance from the attack upon it. These passages from the opinion tell their own story (28 Cal.2d 110, 112 [168 P.2d 718, 719]) : “Petitioner contends that section 6 of the ordinance is invalid because it provides for a vague and uncertain subjective test whereby the city council may exercise substantially unrestricted authority to arbitrarily grant or deny licenses. In American Law Reports, Annotated (vol. 12, p. 1436), the general rule on this subject is well stated. ‘[A] statute or ordinance which vests arbitrary discretion with re
“Respondent maintains that the ordinance may be sustained if we indulge in a presumption that the council will perform its duty in a fair and impartial manner. (See People v. Globe Grain & Milling Co. (1930), 211 Cal. 121, 126-128 [294 P. 3] ; In re Flaherty (1895), 105 Cal. 558, 562 [38 P. 981, 27 L.R.A. 529] ; 19 Cal.L.Rev. 449.) This contention rests upon the assumption that no question of, or akin to that of, free speech is presented, for where free speech" or any other fundamental right is involved the presumption of proper action by the licensing authority cannot be relied upon. Numerous recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court have struck down ordinances which attempted to vest city officials with virtually unlimited discretionary power to grant or refuse permits and to thereby effectively impose a censorship or previous restraint upon constitutional rights or liberties. (See Lovell v. Griffin (1938), 303 U.S. 444 [58 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949] ; Hague v. C.I.O. (1939), supra, 307 U.S. 496 [59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423] ; Schneider v. State (1939), supra, 308 U.S. 147 [60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155]; Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), 310 U.S. 296 [60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 128 A.L.R. 1352] ; Largent v. Texas (1943), 318 U.S. 418 [63 S.Ct. 667, 87 L.Ed. 873].) As shown in some detail later in this opinion, in at least one aspect of the instant case, the element of free speech cannot be ignored. ’ ’
We conclude, therefore, that whatever might be the fate of our ordinance if it were limited to parades and processions in support of commercial ventures, written’ as it is to forbid parades and processions even though they may have as their object the propagating of ideas, it falls within the federal cases we noted earlier in this opinion, and which are cited at the conclusion of the passage quoted from our Supreme Court’s opinion in the Porterfield case, and so violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
That the purpose of parades and processions is often that of persuading others to adopt and act upon the tenets of the
We note similar views expressed in Rich v. City of Naperville (1891), 42 Ill.App. 222, 223: “Ever since the landing of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower the right to assemble and worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience, and the right to parade in a peaceable manner and for a lawful purpose, have been fostered and regarded as among the fundamental rights of a free people. The spirit of our free institutions allows great latitude in public parades and demonstrations, whether religious or political, and if they dp not threaten the public peace, or substantially interfere with the rights of others, every measure repressing them, whether by legislative enactment, or municipal ordinance, is an encroach
These cases, admittedly early ones, are cited, first of all, to establish that, contrary to the opinion expressed in State v. Cox (1940), 91 N.H. 137 [16 A.2d 508], to which we shall shortly turn our attention, a group of persons who desired to make their beliefs known by means of a parade on a public street, come to their public officials not as suppliants for a favor, but as citizens seeking to exercise a right. True, in modern times the methods of communicating ideas have been multiplied. Even so, the highest court of the land has insisted that the ancient method of disseminating opinions by the distribution of pamphlets is also a modern right, constitutionally protected (Lovell v. Griffin, supra, 303 U.S. 444 [58 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949] ; Schneider v. Irvington, supra, 308 U.S. 147 [60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 115]), and we entertain no doubt that the long existing right to parade, subject to regulation though it is, has not become so decrepit through the years that it may be denied with impunity. Whatever the reason, the twenty-six defendants in this case chose to exercise the parade method of expressing their views, and that it was a method in vogue before this century does not destroy its present standing.
The one state case of which we are aware, that holds legislative provisions prohibiting parades without a permit to be valid, where their is no guide explicit, in the legislation which governs the granting, or denial, of the permit, is State v. Cox
An appeal was taken to the United States Supreme Court from the judgment of the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the Cox case, and the judgment of the state court was affirmed. This much can be said of Cox v. New Hampshire (1940), 312 U.S. 569 [61 S.Ct. 762, 85 L.Ed. 1049, 133 A.L.R. 1396], in support of the People’s contention: The case stresses the right of the state to impose regulations in order to assure the safety and convenience of the people in the use of their highways
Nor do we find in the opinion any suggestion of the abandonment of the principle, applied in the cases cited in the portions of the opinion quoted in the preceding paragraph, and again applied in the case of Largent v. Texas, supra, 318 U.S. 418 [63 S.Ct. 667, 87 L.Ed. 873], decided after the Cox case, that if a license is required of one who desires to exercise his right freely to convey his thoughts to others, the one empowered to issue the license may not be left free to issue it or not as to him seems best. The case is not authority, contrary to all others, that a city may arbitrarily prohibit parades on its streets, for the court accepted the state statute as interpreted by the state court, as of course it was bound to do (International H. Co. v. Wisconsin Dept. of Taxation (1943), 322 U.S. 435, 445 [64 S.Ct. 1060, 88 L.Ed. 1373, 1381]), and as so interpreted there was no arbitrary prohibition. We note particularly these sentences (312 U.S. 576, 85 L.Ed. 1053, 1054) : “But the court held that the licensing board was not vested with arbitrary power or an unfettered discretion; that its discretion must be exercised with ‘uniformity of method of treatment upon the facts of each application, free from improper or inappropriate considerations and from unfair discrimination’ ; that a ‘systematic, consistent and just order of treatment, with reference to the convenience of public use of the highways, is the statutory mandate. ’ The defendants, said the court, ‘had a right, under the Act, to a license to
The latest case on the subject before us, of which we are aware, is Trujillo v. City of Walsenburg (1941), 108 Colo. 427 [118 P.2d 1081]. The city ordinance there involved, which declared it to be unlawful to use the streets for a parade without a permit from the Chief of Police, was held to be unconstitutional upon much the same grounds as those, we have advanced in support of our determination. The decision of the Supreme Courts of New Hampshire and of the United States, in the Cox case, were weighed, but found not to justify an approval of the Walsenburg ordinance. ' In particular, the interpretation placed upon its statute by the New Hampshire Supreme Court was considered, but the Colorado Supreme Court commented: "The ordinance before us does not permit of such a construction.”
The ordinance before us contains no provision which warrants us in saying that by its terms the Board of Police Commissioners is limited to consider only the correlative rights of the public to parade and to travel on the streets, when it debates whether or not to issue a permit. It is true that the facts which are called for by the application are all, including the “purpose of such parade or procession,” facts proper to consider if the only question at issue was the adjustment of the two rights, to parade and travel. But nowhere in the ordinance is the board cautioned not to permit their disapproval, or mere lack of approval, of the purpose of the parade to influence their decision. It is not plain from the ordinance that the city council did not expect the board, after careful consideration and acting with the highest motives, to permit the purpose of the paraders to determine, not alone when and where, but also whether, there should be a parade. An ordinance so drawn is invalid, and we are of the opinion that we have no right to add a restriction essential to its validity but which is lacking. If, in order to make legislation of this land constitutional, words may be read into it which are not there, based upon the assumption that only those factors which can, constitutionally, be taken into consideration will be given weight by the permit issuing official, then our Supreme Court in the Porterfield cáse, and the United States
We are fortified, in this conclusion, by a principle thoroughly established in a field of law nearby to that in which our problem lies. This quotation from People v. Broad (1932), 216 Cal. 1, 7 [12 P. 941, 943], sufficiently expresses the point we would make: “ ‘ The rule is well settled that to constitute due process of law in regard to the taking of property the statute should give the parties interested some adequate remedy for the vindication of their rights . . . and it has accordingly been held that to constitute due process the statute itself must provide for notice of the time and place of hearing where the parties may present in a regular and orderly manner issues of law and fact (Ieck v. Anderson, 57 Cal. 251 [40 Am.Rep. 115]). The same rule was declared in Moffatt v. Hecke, etc., 68 Cal.App. 35 [228 P. 546], where it was held that the essential validity of the law was to be tested not by what has been done under it, but by what may by its authority be done; and where a statute authorizes the taking of private property but makes no provision for hearing or notice, either actual or constructive, such defect is not supplied by the voluntary adoption by public officers of rules covering the situation. So in Security Trust Co. v. Lexington, 203 U.S. 323 [51 L.Ed. 204, 27 Sup.Ct.Rep. 87, 89], a case involving the validity of an assessment, it was held that if a statute makes no provision for notice in any form it is not material that as a matter of grace or favor notice may be given. As the court stated, “it is not what notice, uncalled for by the statute, the taxpayer may have received in a particular case that is material, but the question is whether any notice is provided by the statute.” Nor can extra official or casual notice, or a hearing granted as a matter of discretion, be deemed a substantial substitute for the due process that the Constitution requires (Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N.Y. 183 [30 Am.Rep. 289] ; Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U.S. 413 [50 L.Ed. 1027, 35 Sup.Ct.Rep. 625] ; Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Stockyards Co., 212 U.S. 132 [53 L.Ed. 441, 29 Sup.Ct.Rep. 246].)’ ”
That there may be no misunderstanding of our position, we conclude by saying that the invalidity of the present ordinance is not due to the lack of authority in the city to regulate the use of the city’s streets by those who would parade. Of
The order sustaining the demurrer and dismissing Count I is affirmed.
Shaw, P. J., concurred.
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent. Complaint was filed against the defendants herein in the municipal court charging in Count I thereof that they “did wilfully and unlawfully hold, conduct, manage, participate in and carry on a parade, march, and procession on [certain named streets] in the City of Los Angeles, without having first made written application for and received from the Board of Police Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, a permit so to do.” To this count the trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend, and dismissed the complaint as to such count. From this action of the trial court the. People present this appeal. The ordinance is set forth in full (except as to one section, not material here) in the majority opinion.
It thus appears that defendants made no attempt to obtain a permit, and made no application to the board; but on the contrary ignored the law as written upon the apparent assumption (at least as now contended) that the board not only had arbitrary power under the ordinance but would use it in an arbitrary and unreasonable manner. We are,
Some years ago the judges of this appellate department, in another case, arrived at the conclusion that this ordinance was invalid because “it failed to provide a guide whereby the Board of Police Commissioners was to determine whether a permit should or should not be granted.” The majority opinion now follows this view and in doing so finds it necessary to disagree with, or distinguish, the later decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Cox v. New Hampshire (1940), 312 U.S. 569 [61 S.Ct. 762, 85 L.Ed. 1049, 133 A.L.R. 1396]. I shall, therefore, discuss that case first of all. The only distinction suggested is that the New Hampshire Supreme Court construed the law there under consideration in such a manner as to practically amend it and that under well established principles the Supreme Court of the United States approved it as thus construed. I disagree with this view. An examination of the ease in the light of the principles of interpretation established by the decisions and statutes of this state shows that insofar as anything said therein affects, or is necessary to the matter with which we are here concerned or the decision of the United States Supreme Court thereon, the New Hampshire court merely construed the law in a common sense manner and upon the same principles of construction followed by our own courts in numerous cases. (I do not consider that the preliminary discussion by the New Hampshire court concerning title to streets is necessary to the decision or that it in any manner affected the decision of the United States Supreme Court.) The decision added nothing to the law as enacted and took nothing away. In fact, the New Hampshire court (91 N.H. 137 [16 A.2d 508, at p. 513]) specifically disavows any such intention in the following language: “Where a statute is'fairly susceptible of two interpretations, one rendering it constitutional and one not, that construction will ordinarily be adopted which will uphold its constitutionality. . . . While ‘words, provisions, or modifications’ may not at all events be read into a law to the end that it may be clothed with constitutional validity (State v. Gerry, 68 N.H. 495, 503, 38 A. 272, 276, 38 L.R.A. 228), yet when the lan
I quote from the latter decision wherein it quotes from the New Hampshire Supreme Court, as follows: “The obvious advantage of requiring application for a permit was noted as giving the public authorities notice in advance so as to afford opportunity for proper policing. And the court further observed that, in fixing time and place, the license served .‘to prevent confusion by overlapping parades or processions, to secure convenient use of the streets by other travelers, and to minimize the risk of disorder.’ But the court held that the licensing board was not vested with arbitrary power or an unfettered discretion; that its discretion must be exercised with ‘uniformity of method of treatment upon the facts of each application, free from improper or inappropri
An examination of the two decisions (by the United States and New Hampshire Supreme Courts) in the Cox v. New Hampshire case discloses that the only principle laid down by the New Hampshire court and relied upon by the United States court in having any controlling effect upon the latter is that the grant of power to issue permits is not one to be used arbitrarily but only in the honest exercise of a reasonable discretion. Our own Supreme Court in a long time of decisions has given exactly that construction to laws giving similar powers in this state. The principles discussed and laid down by the United States Supreme Court in its decision, and which should be a guide to us, are its own and not those of the New Hampshire court.
That the jurisdiction of the officer or board to whom such authority is given is thus limited has been held by our own Supreme Court many times. In Gaylord v. Pasadena (1917), 175 Cal. 433 [166 P. 348], the court had before it an ordinance which gave to the city electrician the power to examine “any electric wiring, connections, fixtures, appliances, apparatus, machinery, equipment, or work” already installed in any building, and if he determined it was dangerous to life or property, he was empowered to notify the owner to cease using it and to make the changes required by such city electrician within a designated number of days. No other standard for his determination is provided. The ordinance was held valid, and I shall quote more fully from the decision later; upon the point presently being discussed the court says, at page 437: ‘ ‘ That an official charged with such a duty as this may, and indeed must, exercise discretion precisely as he may or must exercise judgment is, of course, true, hut this fact in no way militates against the validity of the law, for, as said in the Van de Carr case, supra, ‘the authority
In the ease of Riley v. Chambers (1919), 181 Cal. 589 [185 P. 855, 8 A.L.R. 418], the court had before it the law which empowered the Real Estate Commissioner to issue a permit to a person to act as real estate broker upon finding him to be “honest, truthful and of good reputation.” The court notes that the law does not in so many words authorize the commissioner to deny a permit but holds that such authority is necessarily implied. He is also empowered to revoke upon presentation of written charges. Answering an attack upon the law similar to the one we are now considering, the court says, at page 595: “But it may be said that the power of the commissioner to refuse a license if he is not satisfied as to the character of the applicant practically gives him arbitrary power as he alone can determine whether he is satisfied or not. This, however, is not true. While the commissioner has the power to refuse a license if he is not satisfied as to the character of the applicant, his discretion is not arbitrary. There must exist facts which reasonably justify his conclusion that the applicant is not of good character and reputation. If such facts do not exist, it is his duty to issue the license and this duty can be enforced by the courts.”
Furthermore, as indicated by the last sentence above quoted, the courts of this state have taken the next logical step, based upon this limitation of the authority vested in the officer or board and have held that mandate will lie to compel the' issuance of a permit in the event it is arbitrarily withheld. In Gaylord v. Pasadena, supra, 175 Cal. at page 439, the court says -. ‘ ‘ An unnecessary liberality is shown in this ordinance in conferring, as it does, a right of appeal to the council, for the ordinance, if good at all, would unquestionably be good without such right of appeal, and the householder conceiving himself to be injured would be left to his action in court.”
The case of In re Holmes (1921), 187 Cal. 640 [203 P. 398], involved an ordinance of the city and county of San Francisco empowering the Board of Police Commissioners to grant or refuse permits to persons desiring to engage in selling and dealing in secondhand books, and in response to an attack thereon upon the ground that it gave arbitrary and uncontrolled power to the board, the court says, at page 646: “ ‘Many cases are to be found sustaining ordinances
In Butterworth v. Boyd (1938), 12 Cal.2d 140 [82 P.2d 434, 126 A.L.R. 838], the court had under consideration a charter provision in which certain officers were given authority to make determinations and this was attacked as arbitrary and for which no standard was set up. The court says, at page 149: “It is to be presumed that the board will exercise its powers in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution; and if it does act unfairly, the fault lies with the board and not the statute. Constitutional guaranties against arbitrary and discriminating action are read into the law, and the courts will compel administrative officials to respect them.” (Emphasis added.)
It may be noted that our ordinance, like the law discussed in Riley v. Chambers, supra, 181 Cal. 589, does not in words empower the board to deny the application for a permit; however, as said in that case, such power is necessarily implied. It would be am, anomaly to say that the law implies an arbitrary and illegal power.
It is axiomatic that every intendment is in favor of the validity of a law and that “the authority of the courts to declare a regulation invalid will be exercised with caution and only when it is clear that the law exceeds the limit of legislative power and infringes upon rights guaranteed by the Constitution.” The above quotation is from Bernstein v. Bush (Mar. 1947), 29 Cal.2d 773, 777 [177 P.2d 913], citing the well known ease of Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U.S. 223
There are numerous cases in California sustaining laws requiring the obtaining of a permit from a board or officer with no more clearly defined standards fixed therein than in the ordinance here under examination. I again quote from Gaylord v. Pasadena, supra, 175 Cal. at pages 436 and 439: “Even a casual observer of governmental growth and development must have observed the ever-increasing multiplicity and complexity of administrative affairs-—national, state and municipal—and even the occasional reader of the law must have perceived that from necessity, if for no better grounded reason, it has become increasingly imperative that many quasi-legislative and qwcm’-judicial functions, which in smaller communities and under more primitive conditions were performed directly by the legislative or judicial branches of the government, are intrusted to departments, boards, commissions, and agents. No sound objection can longer be successfully advanced to this growing method of transacting public business. ... It [the ordinance under attack] does not define what conditions the city electrician must find to exist before he determines that the electrical apparatus is unsafe or dangerous. From the very nature and character of such apparatus it would be impossible for any ordinance so to do without working in many instances the very oppression which its language, necessarily general, is designed to prevent. As we have said, it is presumed that the city electrician will act fairly.” To same effect, see In re Holmes, supra, 187 Cal. 640 ; Riley v. Chambers, supra, 181 Cal. 589 ; In re Hartmann (1938), 25 Cal.App.2d 55, 60 [76 P.2d 709], where the court says, “We may not assume the chief of police will arbitrarily refuse to grant permits to canvass for subscriptions without good cause. The presumption is that every officer will perform his full duty in a fair and lawful manner.” Citing In re Flaherty, 105 Cal. 558 [38 P. 981, 27 L.R.A. 529] ; In re Jones (1943), 56 Cal.App.2d 658 [133 P.2d 418] ; Gospel Army v. City of Los Angeles (1945), 27 Cal.2d 232 [163 P.2d 704], in which the authority given to the Board of Police Commissioners to issue permits to secondhand goods dealers is similarly attacked, and the court says, at page 249: ‘ ‘ The board has no discretion to withhold a license if the applicant ’s good character and reputation and his financial responsibility are established and the required bond is filed. The
The ordinance before us, like the one under discussion in People v. Walton, supra, requires the filing of an application setting forth certain information, viz., the course to be traveled, time of starting, names of persons in control or responsible, and the purpose of the proposed parade. These clearly indicate the nature of the information which must he considered by the board in passing upon the application and each is consistent with the purpose of bringing out facts necessary to be known in order to decide whether or not issuance of the permit is consistent with traffic conditions at any particualr time and
As said by the court in the case of In re Anderson (1933), 130 Cal.App. 395, 398 [19 P.2d 1027] : “The primary purpose of a highway is the passing and repassing of the public, which is entitled so far as needed to the full, unobstructed and uninterrupted enjoyment of the entire width of the layout for that purpose, ’ ’ and even though historically the streets may have been used also for dissemination of ideas by parades, this has always been subject to the primary and basic purpose of furnishing a place for transportation. The relation of these two uses might be compared, by analogy, to a first lien and
It is important to have in mind that while fundamental rights and principles never change, the manner and extent of their exercise must of necessity vary with changing conditions. The right of free speech is a fundamental right that goes with the individual anywhere he may be, but the extent to which and the manner in which he may exercise it vary with places and circumstances. The right to engage in a parade is not a fundamental right but is merely one phase of the exer
A parade is defined by Webster’s dictionary as, “1. Pompous show; formal display or exhibition. 3. Any march or procession ; esp. a formal public procession; the movement of any body marshaled in something like military order.” Such an activity necessarily involves the exclusive use of all or a substantial portion of the street to the exclusion of all others. Does any person or group of persons have a fundamental right to such exclusive use ? If so, how many groups have the same right at the same time f Only the moving of persons in mass formation or parade order involving in greater or less degree the exclusive use of the street is within the ordinance, by which such use is adapted to the primary purpose of such streets. No other manner of the exercise of free speech in the street is touched by the ordinance—distributing handbills, carrying banners on foot or in cars, full discussion with others on the street, calling out from cars or any other phase of free speech, even the movement of a group of persons or cars not unduly burdening the street and not in parade formation.
The majority opinion recognizes the right of the city to regulate the holding of parades but insists that the ordinance is void because it fixes no standard to be observed by the board in granting or withholding permits, with the result that the board could act arbitrarily and perhaps deny a permit to those with whose economic, political or other ideas of the board might disagree.
It seems to me this ordinance is one whose standard is obvious from its purpose. The police department has the duty of enforcing all ordinances having to do with the regulation of traffic on the streets and the police commission is given authority by the charter (§ 204) to create a special bureau devoted to this. The ordinance before us, giving that commission the responsibility of passing upon applications for parades is in full consonance with these duties. On the other hand, to assume that the board in passing upon such applications will do so from the standpoint of censors instead of in connection with traffic considerations, is to assume that they will ignore their obvious and recognized powers in their own field and step into the field of censorship without the slightest
The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution is not a set of by-laws but statements of fundamental rights. They are to be applied by the courts to conditions and affairs as they exist from time to time in harmony with the general welfare of the whole people and the practical operation of our scheme of government. The presumption that official duty will be honestly and fairly performed is absolutely necessary to governmental operation, for laws cannot be made wholly automatic. As the Supreme Court of the United States once said, “Wherever power is lodged it may be abused. But this forms no solid objection against its exercise. Confidence must
It would unduly extend this opinion to discuss each of the cases relied upon in the majority opinion. Many of them are specifically distinguished by the United States Supreme Court in Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569 (supra), in the following language: ‘ ‘ The decisions upon which appellants rely are not applicable. In Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 82 L.ed. 949, 58 S.Ct. 666, supra, the ordinance prohibited the distribution of literature of any kind at any time, at any place, and in any manner without a permit from the city manager, thus striking at the very foundation of the freedom of the press by subjecting it to license and censorship. In Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496, 83 L.ed. 1423, 59 S.Ct. 954, supra, the ordinance dealt with the exercise of the right of assembly for the purpose of communicating views; it did not make comfort or convenience in the use of streets the standard of official action but enabled the local official absolutely to refuse a permit on his mere opinion that such refusal would prevent ‘riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage. ’ The ordinance thus created as the record disclosed, an instrument of arbitrary suppression of opinions on public questions. The court said that ‘uncontrolled official suppression of the privilege cannot be made a substitute for the duty to maintain order in connection with the exercise of the right.’ In Schneider v. Irvington, supra, (308 U.S. p. 163, 84 L.ed. 165, 60 S.Ct. 146) the ordinance was directed at canvassing and banned unlicensed communication of any views, or the advocacy of, any cause, from door to door, subject only to the power of a police officer to determine as a censor what literature might be distributed and who might distribute it. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, (310 U.S. p. 305, 84 L.ed. 1218, 60 S.Ct. 900,128 A.L.R. 1352) the statute dealt with the solicitation of funds for religious causes and authorized an official to determine whether the cause was a religious one and to refuse a permit if he determined it was not, thus establishing a censorship of religion.
“Nor is any question of peaceful picketing here involved, as in Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 84 L.ed. 1093, 60 S.Ct. 736, and Carlson v. California, 310 U.S. 106, 84 L.ed. 1104, 60 S.Ct. 746. The statute, as the state court said, is not aimed at any restraint of freedom of speech, and there is no basis for an assumption that it would be applied so as to pre
The distinction between our case and Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 588 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949], is that in the latter the law directly attacks a fundamental right—the distribution of literature “of any kind, at any time, at any place or in any manner”; it does not and cannot possibly be construed as a regulation to adapt the exercise of this right to another equally necessary right, but is an attempted bold authority to deprive the citizen of this right directly and solely and -without regard to the exercise of any other right by other persons. The real vice of this and similar laws, therefore, is not that they do not fix a standard, but that in the very nature of the subject involved, no fixed standard other than the will of the licensing authority was intended or could possibly be construed as having been intended. An examination of the other cases decided by the United States and California Supreme Courts, and cited in the majority opinion, shows that a similar distinction exists as to substantially all of them, including the Porterfield case so heavily relied upon.
Extensive quotation upon the general subject of the importance of parades as instruments of free speech is made from two decisions, one by the Supreme Court of Kansas, and the other by the Illinois Court of Appeals. The former was rendered in 1888, and the latter in 1891. Those were the days when boys played marbles and men in shirt sleeves amused themselves by playing baseball in the streets of the towns with no danger to themselves or interference with traffic, and parades posed no problem other than possible frightening of some farmer’s skittish colt. They are hardly proper guides at this time concerning an ordinance obviously designed to prevent obstruction to the free flow of traffic in this great metropolitan center.
The majority opinion, conscious of the antiquity of these cases, says “. . . we entertain no doubt that the long existing right to parade, subject to regulation though it is, has not become so decrepit through the years that it may be denied with impunity. ’ ’ On the other hand, however great may be
The words of Justice Frankfurter in his separate opinion in the case of Martin v. Struthers (1943), 319 U.S. 141 [63 S.Ct. 862, 87 L.Ed. 1313], seem particularly appropriate: “From generation to generation fresh vindication is given to the prophetic wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in casting it in terms so broad that it has adaptable vitality for the drastic changes in our society which they knew to be inevitable, even though they could not foresee them. . . . The Constitution cannot be applied in disregard of the external circumstances in which men live and move and have their being. Therefore neither the First nor the Fourteenth Amendment is to be treated by judges as though it were a mathematical abstraction, an absolute having no relation to the lives of men.”
Great reliance has been placed upon the decision of our Supreme Court in In re Porterfield (1946), 28 Cal.2d 91 [168 P.2d 706]. I find no conflict therein with the views I have expressed, nor with the prior decisions of this court .upon which they are based. In the first place, it is not a parade case, and deals with a very different activity—one dealing directly with a fundamental freedom and not merely limiting one phase of an activity in the face of a greater need. The reliance is principally on the general statement in the opinion (p. 112), as follows: “This contention (the presumption that the council will perform its duty in a fair and impartial manner) rests upon the assumption that no question of, or akin to that of, free speech is presented, for where free speech or any other fundamental right is involved the presumption of proper action by the licensing authority cannot be relied upon.” This is a broad statement of general principle and I am not persuaded that the court intended to say that under every imaginable situation, if the right óf free speech or any other fundamental right is involved even in the slightest and most remote degree, any law which vests any discretion whatever in a public official must be declared void, even though the problem involved by its own nature permits of no definite
Again quoting from the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Cox v. New Hampshire: “Civil liberties, as guaranteed by the Constitution, imply the existence of an organized society maintaining public order without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses of unrestrained abuses. The authority of a municipality to impose regulations in order to assure the safety and convenience of the people in the use of public highways has never been regarded as inconsistent with civil liberties but rather as one of the means of safeguarding the good order upon which they ultimately depend. The control of travel on the streets of cities is the most familiar illustration of this recognition of social
In my opinion, the section of the Municipal Code in question constitutes a valid exercise of the police power, and is fully sustained by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Cox v. New Hampshire, supra; and it follows therefrom that the order of the trial court in dismissing this count of the complaint should be vacated and the case remanded with instructions to overrule the demurrer.
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