Dillon v. Municipal Court

Decision Date17 May 1971
Docket NumberMONTEREY-CARMEL,S.F. 22774
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
Parties, 484 P.2d 945 Paul DILLON et al., Petitioners, v. The MUNICIPAL COURT FOR theJUDICIAL DISTRICT OF MONTEREY COUNTY, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

Paul N. Halvonik, Charles C. Marson, San Francisco, Herbert A. Schwartz, Richard Barelli, Berkeley, Raymond Shonholtz, Pacific Grove, and Steve Slatkow, Seaside, for petitioners.

No appearance for respondent.

Donald H. Smith and Saul M. Weingarten, City Attys., and Robert T. Anderson, Berkeley, for real party in interest.

SULLIVAN, Justice.

Petitioners 1 seek a writ of prohibition restraining respondent court from taking further proceedings in a criminal action charging them with a violation of section 9--108 of the Municipal Code of the City of Seaside (City). The ordinance prohibits parades or civic demonstrations obstructing the free use of streets and sidewalks without first obtaining a permit from the city. 2 We issued an alternative writ of prohibition. Alleging that it has been designated real party in interest under the name of the 'People of the State of California,' the City has made a return thereto by verified answer. (Code Civ.Proc. §§ 1089, 1105; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 56(c).)

The petition alleges in substance the following facts. In 1970, the traditional Independence Day parade in the City of Seaside was held on Sunday, July 5. It was organized by the Seaside Chamber of Commerce (Chamber), a body designated by the City as its official agency for the collection and distribution of information regarding businesses, public facilities, and civic and recreational activities and opportunities. The Chamber receives from the City approximately $10,500 per year and spends approximately $6,000 of that money each year on the Independence Day parade and related activities.

Pursuant to section 9--108 of the Seaside Municipal Code (see fn. 2, Ante), the City issued to the Chamber a parade permit for July 5, 1970, and delegated to that body the task of issuing permits to groups participating in the parade. Approximately 180 organizations of various types, including other cities, ethnic groups, high schools, military organizations, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and horsemen's associations were given permission by the Chamber to march in the parade.

Five groups, 'dedicated to the active pursuit of peace through political process' 3 filed timely applications for permission to march in the parade. 4 On June 30, 1970, the Chamber informed counsel for the 'peace groups' that two of the organizations would be permitted to be in the parade and that they had been assigned certain positions and starting times. Three days later, however, the Chamber notified the groups that none of them would be permitted to participate.

Despite the Chamber's refusal, it is alleged, petitioners, who are members of the five 'peace groups,' and between thirty and eighty other persons marched for two or three blocks along the parade route following the last official unit of the parade. The march was peaceful except for a brief scuffle which occurred when a few members of the last official unit of the parade attempted to wrest a banner from petitioners.

The police took no action during the parade except to take motion pictures of the unauthorized portion of the parade. On July 16, 1970, petitioners attended the Seaside Council meeting to protest the treatment which had been given their applications to join the parade. At that time they were cited for violation of section 9--108 of the Seaside Municipal Code. No other unauthorized 'marchers' were arrested or cited.

On July 27, 1970, a complaint was filed in respondent court charging petitioners with violating section 9--108 by obstructing the free use of one of the streets on the parade route. On July 29, 1970, petitioners filed a demurrer to the complaint asserting that section 9--108 is an unlawful prior restraint on the exercise of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, that it is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and that it violates equal protection. Respondent court overruled the demurrer, whereupon petitioners filed the instant petition for a writ of prohibition.

The City's return to the alternative writ admits that the parade was held, that the Chamber had applied for and obtained a parade permit, that section 9--108 governs the legality of holding parades in the streets of Seaside, that petitioners had expressed to the Seaside City Council certain grievances concerning the treatment of peace groups during the parade, and that petitioners were cited for and charged with a violation of section 9--108. The City generally denies either positively or for lack of sufficient information or belief the remaining allegations of the petition. Specifically, the City denies that there was an agency relationship between it and the Chamber and denies that it delegated to the Chamber organizational and promotional responsibility for the parade. The City also alleges that petitioners never applied to It for a parade permit as required by section 9--108.

From these pleadings, the following undisputed facts emerge. The City of Seaside has adopted section 9--108 of its Municipal Code to govern parades on its streets. On July 5, 1970, the Chamber held the traditional Independence Day parade pursuant to a permit issued to it by the City under the provisions of section 9--108. Petitioners were cited for having violated section 9--108 on the day of the parade and a complaint was filed in respondent court charging that petitioners had violated section 9--108 by obstructing the free use of a specified street on the parade route.

The remaining facts stated in the petition have been placed in issue by the return but the resolution of these factual disputes is not essential to a disposition of the matter before us. 5 Petitioners' crucial contention is that respondent court lacks jurisdiction over the proceedings pending before it because section 9--108 is unconstitutional On its face, violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Such a challenge is directed solely to the language of the enactment and not to its application in the particular case. Accordingly, we are not called upon to resolve the facts disputed by the parties. (See Moore v. Municipal Court (1959) 170 Cal.App.2d 548, 553, 339 P.2d 196.)

We do not consider issues which might have been raised had the Chamber's alleged role as the City's agent been an undisputed fact. Nor are we concerned with the asserted right of a group holding a permit to manage its own parade or the alleged right of the licensing authority to deny a permit to avoid conflicts between parades. The sole issue before us is whether section 9--108 is unconstitutional on its face.

Petitioners contend that the City's ordinance (see fn. 2, Ante) is an unconstitutional prior restraint on First Amendment rights because it is a licensing scheme totally devoid of narrow, definite and objective standards. 6 Recently, in Burton v. Municipal Court (1968) 68 Cal.2d 684, 68 Cal.Rptr. 721, 441 P.2d 281, we were presented with a similar contention involving a statute requiring the licensing of motion picture theaters. We there observed that the 'crucial factor' in any determination of the validity of an ordinance imposing prior restraints on speech 'is our zealous solicitude for rights falling within the protection of the First Amendment. In considering the constitutionality of ordinances in the category of that involved here "precision of regulation must be the touchstone" (Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas (1968) 390 U.S. 676 (682), 88 S.Ct. 1298, 20 L.Ed.2d 225, 231) and the standards set forth therein must be 'susceptible of objective measurement' (Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967) 385 U.S. 589, 603--604, 87 S.Ct. 675, 17 L.Ed.2d 629, 640--641). Such precision is exacted because the 'threat of sanctions may deter almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions.' (N.A.A.C.P. v. Button (1962) 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (418).) A long line of decisions has held unconstitutional ordinances governing the issuance of licenses to conduct First Amendment activities where administrative officials were granted excessive discretion in determining whether to grant or deny the license. (Par.) * * * A fortiori an ordinance is unconstitutional if no standards whatever are set forth to circumscribe the discretion of officials in granting or denying licenses. (Citations.)' (Burton v. Municipal Court, Supra, 68 Cal.2d 684, 690--692, 68 Cal.Rptr. 721, 725, 441 P.2d 281, 285.)

In Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, Supra, 394 U.S. 147, 89 S.Ct. 935, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a conviction under a city ordinance declaring it unlawful to organize, hold or participate in 'any parade or procession or other public demonstration on the streets or other public ways of the city' (Id. at p. 149, 89 S.Ct. at p. 937) without first obtaining a permit from the city commission. The ordinance provided that the commission 'shall grant a written permit * * * unless in its judgment the public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience require that it be refused.' (Id. at pp. 149--150, 89 S.Ct. at p. 938.)

The high court, observing that the ordinance as written conferred on the commission 'virtually unbridled and absolute power to prohibit' a parade or public demonstration, concluded that established constitutional principles forbade its enforcement. 'This ordinance as it was written, therefore, fell squarely within the ambit of the many decisions of this Court over the last 30 years, holding that a law subjecting the exercise of First Amendment freedoms to the prior restraint of a license, without narrow, objective, and definite standards to guide the authority,...

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