Speech and Expression
Time, Place and Manner
City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent (1984)
466 U.S. 789 (1984)
Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Stevens, joined by Burger, White, Powell, Rehnquist, and O’Connor
Dissent: Brennan, joined by Blackmun and Marshall
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 28.04 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits the posting of signs on public property. The question presented is whether that prohibition abridges appellees’ freedom of speech within the meaning of the First Amendment. In March, 1979, Roland Vincent was a candidate for election to the Los Angeles City Council. A group of his supporters known as Taxpayers for Vincent (Taxpayers) entered into a contract with a political sign service company known as Candidates’ Outdoor Graphics Service (COGS) to fabricate and post signs with Vincent’s name on them. COGS produced 15- by-44-inch cardboard signs and attached them to utility poles at various locations by draping them over crosswires which support the poles and stapling the cardboard together at the bottom. The signs’ message was: “Roland Vincent — City Council.”
Acting under the authority of § 28.04 of the Municipal Code, employees of the city’s Bureau of Street Maintenance routinely removed all posters attached to utility poles and similar objects covered by the ordinance, including the COGS signs. The weekly sign removal report covering the period March 1-March 7, 1979, indicated that among the 1,207 signs removed from public property during that week, 48 were identified as “Roland Vincent” signs. Most of the other signs identified in that report were apparently commercial in character.
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In its appeal to this Court, the City challenges the Court of Appeals’ holding that § 28.04 is unconstitutional on its face. Taxpayers and COGS defend that holding, and also contend that the ordinance is unconstitutional as applied to their posting of political campaign signs on the crosswires of utility poles. There are two quite different ways in which a statute or ordinance may be considered invalid “on its face” — either because it is unconstitutional in every conceivable application or because it seeks to prohibit such a broad range of protected conduct that it is unconstitutionally “overbroad.” We shall analyze the “facial” challenges to the ordinance, and then address its specific application to appellees.
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[T]he Court did recognize an exception to this general rule for laws that are written so broadly that they may inhibit the constitutionally protected speech of third parties. This “overbreadth” doctrine has its source in Thornhill v. Alabama, (1940). In that case, the Court concluded that the very existence of some broadly written statutes may have such a deterrent effect on free expression that they should be subject to challenge even by a party whose own conduct may be unprotected. The Court has repeatedly held that such a statute may be challenged on its face even though a more n