State v. Chavez

• Decision Date: 10 July 1979
• Docket Number: No. 1,CA-CR,1
• Citation: 601 P.2d 301,123 Ariz. 538
• Parties: , 102 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3112, 86 Lab.Cas. P 55,206 STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Cesar E. CHAVEZ and Helen F. Chavez, Appellants. 3534.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

Page 301

601 P.2d 301

123 Ariz. 538, 102 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3112, 86 Lab.Cas. P 55,206

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Cesar E. CHAVEZ and Helen F. Chavez, Appellants.

No. 1 CA-CR 3534.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, Department C.

July 10, 1979.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 13, 1979.

Review Denied Oct. 10, 1979.

Robert K. Corbin, Atty. Gen., John A. LaSota, Jr., former Atty. Gen., by Lynn Hamilton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Phoenix, for appellee.

James Rutkowski, Salinas, Cal., for appellants

OPINION

WREN, Judge.

The appellants, Cesar E. Chavez and Helen F. Chavez, have challenged the constitutionality of a preliminary injunction which prohibited picketing by the United Farm Workers Union against certain melon fields in Yuma County.

This challenge arises from appellants' trial and conviction for criminal contempt under A.R.S. § 13-341(4) ¹ for having deliberately violated a court order which prohibited all "massing, assembling, demonstrating or picketing" upon or near the properties of G and S Produce Company and Pete Pasquinelli Company. Appellants' contention at the hearing on the contempt charge and before this Court on appeal is that the injunction was unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of a protected First Amendment activity, peaceful picketing, since it failed to distinguish between violent and non-violent conduct. Therefore, they maintain, inasmuch as the injunction was void on its face, they had a legal right to disobey the unlawful order and could not be found guilty of criminal contempt.

The State, on the other hand, argues that appellants by failing to appeal the injunction or to seek its review by special action, are now estopped to launch a collateral attack on its validity by an appeal from their convictions on the contempt charges. We agree with this assertion by the State and therefore affirm.

The facts generally are not in dispute. Over the Memorial Day weekend, May 27 through 29, 1978, the United Farm Workers imported numerous strikers to the Yuma County cantaloupe fields and initiated a strike. On May 29, 1978, the Yuma County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order limiting the number of strikers per acre and per laborer and prohibiting certain violent acts. On June 7, 1978, after a hearing in which appellants participated, the court issued a preliminary injunction which prohibited All picketing. On June 13, appellants violated that injunction by massing near a cantaloupe farm. Prior to the violation they had made no effort to seek relief via appeal or petition for special action. ² Their sole defense at the contempt trial was that a citizen need not obey an invalid court order and that the prohibition against even peaceful picketing constituted an unlawful restraint of their First Amendment rights.

As a basis for issuing injunctive relief to the growers, the trial court had determined that there was no evidence of employee dissatisfaction in the melon fields and no reason for the pickets. The court further found that: the picketers were making threats against the employees working in the fields and were not attempting to engage in any peaceful communication with them; there were repeated acts of aggression by the strikers in throwing rocks and impeding traffic; and the entire situation was "enmeshed in violence". Further, the court stated that the United Farm Workers Union was in violation of Arizona's Right to Work Laws.

Appellants acknowledge that the State may legitimately enjoin non-peaceful conduct connected with a labor dispute, but contend that an order which also bans protected speech activity in its attempt to prevent unlawful conduct sweeps too broadly and is constitutionally intolerable. It is clear, they argue, that the right to peacefully picket for a lawful purpose is guaranteed under the "freedom of speech" clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Baldwin v. Arizona Flame Restaurant 82 Ariz. 385, 313 P.2d 759 (1957); Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940).

Appellants urge that we follow the California Supreme Court decision in In re Berry, 68 Cal.2d 137, 65 Cal.Rptr. 273, 436 P.2d 273 (1968). In Berry, the superior court judge issued an injunction prohibiting all picketing and striking by a public employee union. Nevertheless, many persons continued to picket despite the order, arguing that it was unconstitutional. Approximately eighty of these persons were arrested and convicted of criminal contempt. The California Supreme Court reversed the contempt convictions on the ground that the order was unconstitutionally overbroad and, therefore, void on its face. It held that the order, because of its constitutional infirmity, was in excess of the trial court's jurisdiction and could not sustain a contempt judgment. In reaching this conclusion, the court stated:

In this state it is clearly the law that the violation of an order in excess of the jurisdiction of the issuing court cannot produce a valid judgment of contempt . . . .

65 Cal.Rptr. at 280, 436 P.2d at 280. (Citations omitted).

Appellants also argue that the Arizona decision of Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. v. Superior Court, 101 Ariz. 257, 418 P.2d 594 (1966), adopted the same policy as the California court by rejecting a contempt judgment based upon a void court order. In Phoenix Newspapers, the trial court had ordered a newspaper reporter, prior to the commencement of a murder trial, not to publish certain open court habeas corpus proceedings since the judge wanted to assure the defendant a fair trial. Phoenix Newspapers ignored the "gag" order and immediately published a factual account of the proceedings in both of its larger newspapers. The court then issued an order to show cause why the newspaper company should not be held in contempt.

The newspapers countered with an application for a Writ of Prohibition against the citation, urging that the court order was void in that it deprived the newspapers of the rights of free speech and freedom of the press. The Arizona Supreme Court, in granting the writ, spoke sharply to the issue of free press and open courtroom justice, and concluded that the trial court could not, in advance of publication, limit the right of the press to print the news and inform the public of that which had transpired in open court. 101 Ariz. at 260, 418 P.2d at 597. The Court reasoned as follows:

If . . . the act complained of as contemptuous is the violation of an order, decree, or judgment, and the contemnor can show that the order, decree, or judgment of the court was without jurisdiction or void for some other reason, he may not be held in contempt. Ferguson v. Superior Court, 59 Ariz. 314, 320, 127 P.2d 131, 133; In re Lewkowitz, 32 Ariz. 317, 318, 257 P. 989; In re Speakman, 32 Ariz. 307, 317, 257 P. 986, 56 A.L.R. 169.

101 Ariz. at 258-259, 418 P.2d at 595-596.

Such language by our state High Court might well seem to foreclose our inquiry into the collateral attack issue here, except for the later case of Broomfield v. Maricopa County, 112 Ariz. 565, 544 P.2d 1080 (1975), cited by the State, and the fact that other jurisdictions have generally exempted the newspaper injunction from the "collateral bar" rule.

In Broomfield, the Presiding Judge of Maricopa County Superior Court had ordered the County Board of Supervisors to pay the salary of a county probation officer. The Board refused and Judge Broomfield sought relief by special action. The Board contended that the judge's order was void as a usurpation of the supervisor's authority to fix the county budget. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled:

It is a settled principle of law that an order issued by a court with jurisdiction over the subject matter must be obeyed by the parties until that order is reversed by orderly and proper proceedings. United States v. United Mine Workers of America, 330 U.S. 258, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947); Russell v. United States, 86 F.2d 389 (8th Cir. 1936). This principle applies whether the subject matter be litigation or administrative as long as the court had jurisdiction of the matter.

112 Ariz. at 568, 544 P.2d at 1083.

Clearly, in the case before us, the court had jurisdiction over both the subject matter and the parties. Except for the constitutional question appellants concede as much and admit that they knowingly violated the order against picketing. Our quandary here is thus readily perceivable, although it is to be noted that in Phoenix Newspapers there was a direct assault on the validity of the court order in an effort to avoid a contempt citation and the issue of a collateral attack was apparently not raised. However, any attempt at differentiation between Phoenix Newspapers and the language of Broomfield may ring somewhat hollow in light of the newspaper's deliberate violation of a court order, albeit an Ex parte one with no opportunity to be heard and with the journalists not being a party to the court proceedings. Moreover, Phoenix Newspapers involved a constitutional question and Broomfield did not.

In support of its position, the State points to Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210 (1967), Rhg. denied, 389 U.S. 894, 88 S.Ct. 12, 19 L.Ed.2d 202, as being analogous on its facts and dispositive of the issue here. In this Alabama case, the City of Birmingham obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights demonstrators from parading and marching on Easter Sunday. King and his associates disobeyed the court order and were found guilty of criminal contempt. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Rev. King argued that the injunction was clearly an unconstitutional abrogation of First Amendment rights. The contemnors had sought no review of the injunction itself and had offered no explanation for this omission. They merely claimed immunity from a finding of criminal contempt based on voidness of the underlying...