To support the restrictions on this ground [of annoyance] is to derogate the First Amendment rights of plaintiffs and those of defendants' residents who would be willing recipients of plaintiffs' message during the evening hours to the nuisance concerns of those of their residents who would not be willing listeners during those hours, when the wishes of both groups can be easily accommodated.
This holding did not rest on the ‘value’ of the right to vote as an abstract matter; rather, the Court recognized that the plaintiff had suffered a particular injury-his inability to vote in a particular election-that might be compensated through substantial money damages.
“We have often approved restrictions of that kind provided that they are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they serve a significant governmental interest, and that in doing so they have open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.”
“In Schneider, an anti-littering statute could have addressed the substantive evil without prohibiting expressive activity, whereas application of the prophylactic rule actually employed gratuitously infringed upon the right of an individual to communicate directly with a willing listener. Here, the substantive evil-visual blight-is not merely a possible by-product of the activity, but is created by the medium of expression itself. In contrast to Schneider, therefore, the application of ordinance in this case responds precisely to the substantive problem which legitimately concerns the City. The ordinance curtails no more speech than is necessary to accomplish its purpose.”
*1565 “The scope of the First Amendment overbreadth doctrine, like most exceptions to established principles, must be carefully tied to the circumstances in which facial invalidation of a statute is truly warranted. Because of the wide-reaching effects of striking down a statute on its face at the request of one whose own conduct may be punished despite the First Amendment, we have recognized that the overbreadth doctrine is ‘strong medicine’ and have employed it with hesitation, and then ‘only as a last resort.’ We have, in consequence, insisted that the overbreadth involved be ‘substantial’ before the statute involved will be invalidated on its face.”
“Although it is common to place the burden upon the Government to justify impingements on First Amendment interests, it is the obligation of the person desiring to engage in assertedly expressive conduct to demonstrate that the First Amendment even applies. To hold otherwise would be to create a rule that all conduct is presumptively expressive. In the absence of a showing that such a rule is necessary to protect vital First Amendment interests, we decline to deviate from the general rule that one seeking relief bears the burden of demonstrating that he is entitled to it.”
“Had the title to Chickasaw belonged not to a private but to a municipal corporation and had appellant been arrested for violating a municipal ordinance rather than a ruling by those appointed by the corporation to manage a company town it would have been clear that appellant's conviction must be reversed ... [because] neither a state nor a municipality can completely bar the distribution of literature containing religious or political ideas on its streets, sidewalks and public places.... Our question then narrows down to this: Can those people who live in or come to Chickasaw be denied freedom of press and religion simply because a single company has legal title to all the town?”
“In our view the circumstance that the property rights to the premises where the deprivation of liberty, here involved, took place, were held by others than the public, is not sufficient to justify the State's permitting a corporation to govern a community of citizens so as to restrict their fundamental liberties and the enforcement of such restraint by the application of a State statute.”
“It is, of course a commonplace that the constitutional guarantee of free speech is a guarantee only against abridgment by government, federal or state. Thus, while statutory or common law may in some situations extend protection or provide redress against a private corporation or person who seeks to abridge the free expression of others, no such protection or redress is provided by the Constitution itself.”
“involved the assumption by a private enterprise of all attributes of a state-created municipality and the exercise by that enterprise of semi-official municipal functions as a delegate of the State. In effect, the owner of the company town was performing the full spectrum of municipal powers and stood in the shoes of the State.”
“It is unlawful for any person distributing handbills, circulars or other advertisement to ring the doorbell, sound the door knocker, or otherwise summon the inmate or inmates of any residence to the door for the purpose of receiving such handbills, circulars or other advertisements they or any person with them may be distributing.”
“On May 3, 1943, this Court held that cities and states could not enforce laws which impose flat taxes on the privilege of door-to-door sales of religious literature, Jones v. Opelika, 319 U.S. 103, 63 S.Ct. 890, 87 L.Ed. 1290; Murdock v. Com. of Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 63 S.Ct. 870, 87 L.Ed. 1292, or which make it unlawful for persons to go from home to home knocking on doors and ringing doorbells to invite occupants to religious, political or other kinds of public meetings. Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 63 S.Ct. 862, 87 L.Ed. 1313. Over strong dissents, these laws were held to invade liberty of speech, press and religion in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Today a new majority adopts the position of the former dissenters and sustains a city ordinance forbidding door-to-door solicitation of subscriptions to the Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek and other magazines. Since this decision cannot be reconciled with Jones, Murdock and Martin v. Struthers cases, it seems to me that good judicial practice calls for their forthright overruling.”
“There is, of course, no absolute right under the Federal Constitution to enter on the private premises of another and knock on a door for any purpose, and the police power permits reasonable regulation for public safety.”
“To the city council falls the duty of protecting its citizens against the practices deemed subversive of privacy and of quiet. A householder depends for protection on his city board rather than churlishly guarding his entrances with orders forbidding the entrance of solicitors. A sign would have to be a small billboard to make the differentiations between the welcome and unwelcome that can be written in an ordinance once cheaply for all homes.”
“In the years Affiant has lived in Watseka, he has been aware of the practice of itinerant persons purporting to be solicitors misrepresenting their authority and their purpose of solicitation. It has been common practice for such persons to solicit at night when all offices would be closed and there would be no way to verify their authority or the agency they claim to represent. Local persons signing orders with such fictitious solicitors and making payments thereto would find, upon checking, that no such agency existed. As a result, there has [sic] been numerous complaints by local citizens directed to City authorities for help.”
“[h]istory and tradition do not afford any sound guidance concerning the precise value that juries should place on constitutional protections. Accordingly, were such damages available, juries would be free to award arbitrary amounts without any evidentiary basis, or to use their unbounded discretion to punish unpopular defendants. Such damages would be too uncertain to be of any great value to plaintiffs, and would inject caprice into the determination of damages awards for the violation of constitutional rights.”
“In Bolger we considered whether there were less restrictive means. In fact, we discussed the less restrictive regulation the Postal Service had actually tried and found wanting. 737 F.2d at 724-26. We also noted the administrative burden in trying to develop an individual plan for each of the 30,000 differently configured post offices across the country. Id. at 727 & n. 8. It was only by such consideration that we could determine that the regulation was necessary and had been drawn with specificity and was narrowly tailored. This approach accords with our analysis in Village of Schaumburg, 590 F.2d at 225-26, where we considered less restrictive alternatives to the Village's anti-solicitation ordinance in order to determine that it was not drawn narrowly enough.”
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