Hall v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 08 September 1948
• Citation: 188 Va. 72,49 S.E.2d 369
• Parties: HALL v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

188 Va. 72

49 S.E.2d 369

HALL

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Sept. 8, 1948.

Appeal Dismissed Dec. 6, 1948.

See 69 S.Ct. 240.

Error to Hustings Court of City of Richmond; Jn. L. Ingram, Judge.

Dan Leroy Hall was convicted of trespass, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Before HUDGINS, C. J., and EGGLES-TON, SPRATLEY, BUCHANAN, STAPLES and MILLER, JJ.

Hayden C. Covington, of Brooklyn, N. Y., Thos. H. Stone, of Richmond, Grover C. Powell, of Atlanta, Ga., and Roy A. Swayze, of Fairfax, for plaintiff in error.

J. L. Almond, Jr., Atty. Gen., and Ballard Baker, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., for Commonwealth.

HUDGINS, Chief Justice.

The accused, by this writ of error, seeks to reverse a judgment imposing a $5 fine upon him for trespass, on the ground that the conviction violates his right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of worship guaranteed to him by Amendments I and XIV of the Constitution of the United States, sections 12 and 16 of the Constitution of Virginia, and section 34 of the Virginia Code, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.

There is no substantial conflict in the testimony. The Monroe Prestwould Corporation owns a building located at 809. West Franklin Street, Richmond, Virginia, and known as Monroe Terrace Apartments. This is a twelve story structure containing 60 apartment units occupied by between two and three hundred people. The main entrance is a front door leading from the sidewalk to a large lobby on the ground floor. This lobby, the two elevators, the two stairways extending from the ground to the twelfth story, and the hallways are under the supervision and control of an attendant usually found at a desk placed on the far side of the front entrance to the lobby. Each of the sixty apartment units is entered from a hall, and on or near the door opening into each apartment is a button which, on being pressed, rings a doorbell inside the apartment.

The accused testified that he was a regularly ordained minister of Jehovah's Wit nesses which is "an unincorporated body or force of missionary evangelists." This unincorporated body is under the control and direction of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, a corporation organized under the laws of New York and Pennsylvania. This corporation divides the United States into districts and assigns to each district an evangelistic worker. Richmond, Virginia, is in a district assigned to the accused who is directed to preach the beliefs of the corporation. He claimed to be doing this "under a God-given right to preach in public places, on the streets and sidewalks, from door to door, and whether in apartments or whether in the country or whether in the deepest jungles of Africa."

We had arranged to hold a public lecture at 8 p. m. on August 20, in Monroe Park, a public park across the street from Monroe Terrace. Between 7 and 8 p. m. on that day he and four other Jehovah's Witnesses entered Monroe Terrace for the purpose of calling upon the tenants in each apartment to deliver religious tracts and to invite the occupants to attend the lecture. Neither the accused nor his associates sought permission to visit the tenants. The accused was assigned to call upon the occupants of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors and used the elevator for that purpose. After he had completed his door-to-door calls upon these floors, he went outside the building where he was informed by a Mr. Cahoon, one of his associates, that the work had not been completed. He and Mr. Cahoon reentered the building and went to the desk and according to the testimony of the accused, "Mr. Cahoon told them we were engaged in missionary work and were putting on a lecture in the park; the lady said to give her the handbills and she would see they were put out. About that time it was past seven and the lecture was to be at eight and Mr. Cahoon explained the obligation was upon our shoulders and besides, it would be the same as some Western Union boy delivering the handbills, that the obligation rests upon us and we explained this obligation was on us and that it was important for us to call upon the people. She said she could not give permission. He said, 'I am not asking for permission, and if you will not let the ele-vator girls take (us) up we will have to walk.' "

These two Jehovah's Witnesses, over the protest of the attendant, walked up the stairs and were ringing the different doorbells when Mr. G. O. Parrish, the manager of the apartments, stopped them and informed them that one of the rules govern-erning the occupants of the building which had been adopted by the owner with the knowledge and acquiescence of the tenants, forbade any and all visitors from using the hallways to call upon the tenants unless their names were given and their intended visit was announced to the tenant from the desk in the lobby. To the explanation of this rule the accused said: "I wasn't interested and cut him off and said I would go away and leave him alone, that it was up to the people to tell us whether or not they wished to see us and if they don't want to be seen we don't bother them." The accused was told to leave the building and not return unless he was prepared to comply with the rule. He and his associates left the building, thus closing this incident.

The accused arranged another public lecture to be held in Monroe Park on August 27, at 8 p. m. He and his associates reentered the apartment building. This time they stopped at the desk of the attendant who informed them that she could not let them go upstairs unless they complied with the rule regulating the calls of all visitors. To that the accused replied that he was not asking for permission but was going upstairs anyway and merely wanted to inform her that the strangers in the hallways were "just ministers doing their work" and for her to inform the occupants "not to be alarmed, that it was all right." The accused in answer to the following question, said: "Q. You went in there in defiance of what Mr. Parrish told you and the lady at the desk told you because you believed you knew the law and that you had a right to go in? A. Yes, I stand on the law of the land and the law of the Almighty."

While the five were using the upstairs hallways for the purpose of distributing their tracts and invitations to attend the public meeting, some of the tenants complained to the management. Shortly there after the accused was arrested, charged with unlawful trespass, and convicted as heretofore stated.

The statute under which the accused was prosecuted is Chapter 165, Acts of 1934, sec. 4480a, Michie's 1942 Code, which provides: "That if any person shall without authority of law go upon or remain upon the lands or premises of another, after having been forbidden to do so by the owner, lessee, custodian or other person lawfully in charge or possession of such land, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty-five dollars."

The language of the statute is clear and unambiguous. Its provisions may be invoked only when a person has unlawfully entered or has remained upon the premises after he has been forbidden so to do by one lawfully in charge or in possession. The statute does not restrain the accused in any of his activities in the exercise of his religious beliefs; he may go from house to house distributing his pamphlets on the streets, sidewalks, or any other public place without violating any provisions of the statute. The only purpose of this law is to protect the rights of the owners or those in lawful control of private property. It belongs to that class of statutes of which the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v. Richardson, 313 Mass. 632, at page 638, 48 N.E.2d 678, at page 682, 146 A.L.R. 648, said: "The statute with which we are concerned in the present case cannot properly be construed to restrict the defendants from going from house to house in pursuit of their religious calling. It does not purport to do so. Its only purpose is to protect the rights of those in lawful control of property to forbid entrance by those whom they are unwilling to receive, and to exclude them if, having entered, those in control see fit to command them to leave. Properly applied the statute does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

Mr. Justice Black, in Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, at page 147, 63 S.Ct. 862, at page 865, 87 L.Ed. 1313, speak-ing of this particular statute and other statutes of similar character, said: "Traditionally the American law punishes persons who enter onto the property of another after having been warned by the owner to keep off. General trespass after warning statutes exist in at least twenty states, while similar statutes of narrower scope are on the books of at least twelve states more."

We find nothing in the statute when properly applied which infringes upon any privilege or right guaranteed to the accused by the Federal Constitution.

The substance of the contention of the accused is that the entrance, the lobby, the hallways, the elevators, and the stairways within the Monroe Terrace Apartment Building are public ways; and the Fourteenth Amendment restrains the owner from adopting a rule or regulation prohibiting Jehovah's Witnesses from using the same for the purpose of distributing their religious tracts and beliefs just as it restrains the States and municipalities from adopting statutes and ordinances prohibiting similar use of highways, streets, sidewalks, and other public places.

This contention requires a careful analysis of the regulation attacked. The regulation has been in effect for more than fifteen years. No copy of the lease which the tenants are required to sign was produced in evidence. The regulation seems to be oral but, as the trial court found, "through custom and long usage" it has been approved...