Saia v. New York

334 U.S. 558, 68 S. Ct. 1148, 92 L. Ed. 2d 1574, 92 L. Ed. 1574, 1948 U.S. LEXIS 2086

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 7, 1948
• Docket: 504
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion of the Court by

Mr. Justice Douglas,

announced by Mr. Justice Black.

This case presents the question of the validity under the Fourteenth Amendment of a penal ordinance of the City of Lockport, New York, which forbids the use of sound amplification devices except with permission of the Chief of Police.¹

Appellant is a minister of the religious sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. He obtained from the Chief of Police permission to use sound equipment, mounted atop his car, to amplify lectures on religious subjects. The lectures were given at a fixed place in a public park on designated Sundays. When this permit expired, he applied for another one but was refused on the ground that complaints had been made. Appellant nevertheless used his equipment as planned on four occasions, but without a permit. He was tried in Police Court for violations of the ordinance. It was undisputed that he used his equipment to amplify speeches in the park and that they were on religious subjects. Some witnesses testified that they were annoyed by the sound, though not by the content of the addresses; others were not disturbed by either. The court upheld the ordinance against the contention that it violated appellant’s rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and worship under the Federal Constitution. Fines and jail sentences were imposed. His convictions were affirmed without opinion by the County Court for Niagara County and by the New York Court of Appeals, 297 N. Y. 659, 76 N. E. 2d 323. The case is here on appeal.

We hold that § 3 of this ordinance is unconstitutional on its face, for it establishes a previous restraint on the right of free speech in violation of the First Amendment which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against State action. To use a loud-speaker or amplifier one has to get a permit from the Chief of Police. There are no standards prescribed for the exercise of his discretion. The statute is not narrowly drawn to regulate the hours or places of use of loud-speakers, or the volume of sound (the decibels) to which they must be adjusted. The ordinance therefore has all the vices of the ones which we struck down in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; and Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496.

In the Cantwell case a license had to be obtained in order to distribute religious literature. What was religious was left to the discretion of a public official. We held that judicial review to rectify abuses in the licensing system did not save the ordinance from condemnation on the grounds of previous restraint. Lovell v. Griffin, supra, held void on its face an ordinance requiring a license for the distribution of literature. That ordinance, like the present one, was dressed in the garb of the control of a “nuisance.” But the Court made short shrift of the argument, saying that approval of the licensing system would institute censorship “in its baldest form.” In Hague v. C. I. O., supra, we struck down a city ordinance which required a license from a local official for a public assembly on the streets or highways or in the public parks or public buildings. The official was empowered to refuse the permit if in his opinion the refusal would prevent “riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage.” We held that the ordinance was void on its face because it could be made “the instrument of arbitrary suppression of free expression of views on national affairs.” 307 U. S. p. 516.

The present ordinance has the same defects. The right to be heard is placed in the uncontrolled discretion of the Chief of Police. He stands athwart the channels of communication as an obstruction which can be removed only after criminal trial and conviction and lengthy appeal. A more effective previous restraint is difficult to imagine. Unless we are to retreat from the firm positions we have taken in the past, we must give freedom of speech in this case the same preferred treatment that we gave freedom of religion in the Cantwell case, freedom of the press in the Griffin case, and freedom of speech and assembly in the Hague case.²

Loud-speakers are today indispensable instruments of effective public speech. The sound truck has become an accepted method of political campaigning. It is the way people are reached. Must a candidate for governor or the Congress depend on the whim or caprice of the Chief of Police in order to use his sound truck for campaigning? Must he prove to the satisfaction of that official that his noise will not be annoying to people?

The present ordinance would be a dangerous weapon if it were allowed to get a hold on our public life. Noise can be regulated by regulating decibels. The hours and place of public discussion can be controlled. But to allow the police to bar the use of loud-speakers because their use can be abused is like barring radio receivers because they too make a noise. The police need not be given the power to deny a man the use of his radio in order to protect a neighbor against sleepless nights. The same is true here.

Any abuses which loud-speakers create can be controlled by narrowly drawn statutes. When a city allows an official to ban them in his uncontrolled discretion, it sanctions a device for suppression of free communication of ideas. In this case a permit is denied because some persons were said to have found the sound annoying. In the next one a permit may be denied because some people find the ideas annoying. Annoyance at ideas can be cloaked in annoyance at sound. The power of censorship inherent in this type of ordinance reveals its vice.

Courts must balance the various community interests in passing on the constitutionality of local regulations of the character involved here. But in that process they should be mindful to keep the freedoms of the First Amendment in a preferred position. See Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501, 509.

Reversed.

1 The ordinance, insofar as pertinent, reads as follows:

"Section 2. Radio devices, etc. It shall be unlawful for any person to maintain and operate in any building, or on any premises or on any automobile, motor truck or other motor vehicle, any radio device, mechanical device, or loud speaker or any device of any kind whereby the sound therefrom is cast directly upon the streets and public places and where such device is maintained for advertising purposes or for the purpose of attracting the attention of the passing public, or which is so placed and operated that the sounds coming therefrom can be heard to the annoyance or inconvenience of travelers upon any street or public places or of persons in neighboring premises.

“Section 3. Exception. Public dissemination, through radio loudspeakers, of items of news and matters of public concern and athletic activities shall not be deemed a violation of this section provided that the same be done under permission obtained from the Chief of Police.”

Appellant’s conduct was regarded throughout as falling within the types of activity enumerated in § 3. We take the ordinance as construed by the State courts.

2 Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 577-578, did not depart from the rule of these earlier cases but re-emphasized the vice of the type of ordinance we have here. Davis v. Massachusetts, 167 U. S. 43, was distinguished in the Hague case, 307 U. S. pp. 514-516, which likewise involved an ordinance regulating the use of public streets and parks. It was there said, “We have no occasion to determine whether, on the facts disclosed, the Davis case was rightly decided, but we cannot agree that it rules the instant case. Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views on national questions may be regulated in the interest of all; it is not absolute, but relative, and must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience, and in consonance with peace and good order; but it must not, in. the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied.”

We adhere to that view. Though the statement was that of only three Justices, it plainly indicated the route the majority followed, who on the merits did not consider the Davis case to be controlling.