Eberle v. Municipal Court

• Decision Date: 19 February 1976
• Citation: 55 Cal.App.3d 423,127 Cal.Rptr. 594
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Paul EBERLE et al., Petitioners and Respondents, v. MUNICIPAL COURT, LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT, Respondent; The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest and Appellant. Civ. 46574.

Page 594

127 Cal.Rptr. 594

55 Cal.App.3d 423

Paul EBERLE et al., Petitioners and Respondents, v. MUNICIPAL COURT, LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT, Respondent The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest and Appellant.

Civ. 46574.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California.

Feb. 19, 1976.

Hearing Denied April 15, 1976.

Burt Pines, City Atty. and Rand Schrader, Deputy City Atty., Los Angeles, for real party in interest and appellant

Fleishman, McDaniel, Brown & Weston and Stephen F. Rohde, Los Angeles, for petitioners and respondents.

No appearance on behalf of respondent Municipal Court, Los Angeles Judicial District.

Fred Okrand, Jill Jakes, Daniel C. Lavery, Mark D. Rosenbaum and Mary Ellen Gale, Los Angeles, for American Civil Liberties Union of Southern Cal., appearing as amicus curiae in support of petitioners and respondents.

HANSON, Associate Justice.

INTRODUCTION

This is an appeal from the judgment of the superior court granting a writ of prohibition preventing further proceedings in the Municipal Court of Los Angeles Judicial District against certain defendants charged with the publication of a criminal libel in violation of section 249 of the Penal Code.

THE CASE

Defendants-petitioners-respondents Paul Eberle, Shirley Eberle and Mickey Leblovic (hereinafter referred to collectively as defendants) were charged by misdemeanor complaint (case No. 31--496273) with the publication of a criminal libel in violation of Penal Code section 249. The complaint charged that on or about October 15, 1974, the defendants did wilfully and unlawfully, 'and with a malicious intent to injure another, publish and procure to be published a libel, expressed by a writing, printing and picture which tends to impeach the integrity, virtue and reputation of a living person, to wit: ANGIE DICKINSON, and thereby expose her to public hatred, contempt and ridicule.'

Defendants' demurrer to the complaint was overruled. They thereupon sought a writ of prohibition from the superior court on grounds that the California criminal libel statutes under which they were charged were unconstitutional per se and as construed and applied by the complaint. More explicitly, defendants contended that these laws violated their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and press, and the due process and equal protection provisions of the California Constitution (art. I, §§ 1, 9, 11, 13 and 21) ¹ and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The parties conceded that Angie Dickinson was at all relevant times a public figure. ²

The superior court granted the writ of prohibition concluding that the entire scheme of the California libel statute, as embodied in Penal Code sections 248--257, was unconstitutional, relying primarily on the United States Supreme Court case of Garrison v. Louisiana (1964), 379 U.S. 64, 85 S.Ct. 209, 13 L.Ed.2d 125.)

ISSUES

On appeal the People contend that California criminal libel statutes are not unconstitutional per se; that Penal Code section 249 can be isolated from other sections and preserved from unconstitutional contamination; and that this court should make a judicial interpretation of 'malice' which would support constitutionality, just as California appellate courts have incorporated the constitutional definition of 'malice' from New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 into civil cases.

DISCUSSION

Background:

A paramount public interest which is protected by the First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, is to insure a free exchange of ideas and the discussion of public affairs.

In 1940 the United States Supreme Court in Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, said at page 101, 60 S.Ct. 736, at page 744, 84 L.Ed. 1093: 'The freedom of speech and of press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment.'

In 1945 the high court stressed that the First Amendment attempts to secure 'the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.' (Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 20, 65 S.Ct. 1416, 1424, 89 L.Ed. 2013.)

In 1964, the United States Supreme Court addressed itself to freedom of speech and press, as guaranteed by the federal Constitution relative to the field of Civil libel, in the landmark case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686. The high court reversed a judgment awarding damages for civil libel to L. B. Sullivan, one of the three elected commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, from the New York Times, a daily newspaper. Sullivan's complaint had alleged that he was libeled as a public figure and supervisor of the police department in his city by statements in a full-page advertisement that was carried by the newspaper. The jury was instructed that the Times could be held liable if it found that the paper had published the advertisement and made the statements 'of and concerning' Sullivan; it was further instructed that 'falsity and malice are presumed.' The Supreme Court of Alabama sustained the trial judge's rulings and instructions in all respects.

The United States Supreme Court examined the constitutional issues in depth, and concluded that the rule of law applied by the Alabama courts was 'constitutionally deficient for failure to provide the safeguards for freedom of speech and of the press that are required by the First and Fourteenth Amendments in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct.' (376 U.S. at pp. 264--265, 84 S.Ct. at p. 717.) As the court observed thereafter: '(W)e consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.' (376 U.S. at p. 270, 84 S.Ct. at p. 721.)

The court determined that neither factual error nor defamatory content, either separately or in combination, suffices to remove the constitutional shield from criticism of official conduct. 'The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice'--that is, With knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.' (Italics added.) (376 U.S. at pp. 279--280, 84 S.Ct. at p. 726.) In effect, the court declared that it was unconscionably unfair to compel the critic of official conduct to be the guarantor of the truth of all his factual assertions. An allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, would be inhibitory not simply of falsehood but of other legitimate public comment.

In addition, the court struck down the presumption of 'malice,' which flowed from the mere fact of publication, as unconstitutional in principle. "The power to create presumptions is not a means of escape from constitutional restrictions,' (citation); '(t)he showing of malice required for the forfeiture of the privilege is not presumed but is a matter for proof by the plaintiff . . ..' (citation).' (376 U.S. at p. 284, 84 S.Ct. at p. 728.)

Also in 1964, the same year as the New York Times case, the United States Supreme Court was called upon in the case of Garrison v. Louisiana, supra, 379 U.S. 64, 85 S.Ct. 209, 13 L.Ed.2d 125, to clarify the free speech and press guarantees relative to the field of Criminal libel.

In Garrison, an appeal was taken by the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from his conviction for criminal defamation under the Louisiana Criminal Defamation Statute. ³ The charges arose as a result of statements made by Garrison at a press conference and related to the conduct of the Criminal District Court judges in refusing to approve funds for Garrison's staff to investigate commercial vice on Bourbon and Canal Streets. The United States Supreme Court held that the New York Times rule limits state power to impose criminal (as well as civil) sanctions for criticism of the official conduct of public officials.

The court, among other things, rejected the limitation of the defense of truth in criminal libel to utterances published 'with good motives and for justifiable ends.' By footnote, reference was made to a number of States, Including California, which incorporate such a limitation. The court observed that where criticism is made of public officials and their conduct of business, the interest in private reputation is overborne by the larger constitutionally protected public interest in dissemination of the truth. Even where the utterance is false, constitutional freedoms are primary and preclude attaching adverse consequences to any except the knowing or reckless falsehood. Thus the court concluded (379 U.S. at p. 74, 85 S.Ct. at p. 216) that 'only those false statements made with the high degree of awareness of their probable falsity demanded by New York Times may be the subject of either civil or criminal sanctions.'

The New York Times rule absolutely prohibits punishment of truthful criticism. The court noted that the Louisiana statute imposed punishment for true statements made with 'actual malice' and the decisions defined that term as "hatred, ill will or enmity or a wanton desire to injure." (379 U.S. at p. 78, 85 S.Ct. at p. 217.) It also punished false statements made with ill will or if not made with a reasonable belief in truth. A reasonable belief was defined as that which "an ordinarily prudent man might be able to assign a just and fair...