People v. Arnold

California Court of Appeal Aug 26, 1954 No. Crim. A. 3141Published

Before: Patrosso

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Holding. The court held that a municipal ordinance requiring the disclosure of the names and addresses of the author and distributor on handbills is constitutional and a valid exercise of police power. The court reasoned that the constitutional right to free speech is not absolute and does not include a right to remain anonymous, as the exercise of such rights is conditioned upon accepting responsibility for their abuse.

Issues

Whether a municipal ordinance requiring the identification of the author and distributor on handbills violates the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The Constitution itself imposes responsibility as a condition to the exercise of the right, and that condition empowers the legislature to enact law under which identity must be disclosed and responsibility assumed.”

“The guarantee of free speech does not carry with it freedom from responsibility for any abuse of that right.”

“The ordinance here in question does not offend against either the federal or state constitution, and constitutes a proper exercise of the police power.”

PATROSSO, J.

Defendant was convicted of violating section 28.06 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, execution of sentence was suspended and he was placed on six months’ summary probation on the condition not to engage in similar practice.

Defendant’s sole contention on appeal is that the ordinance under which he was convicted is unconstitutional because violative of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech and of the press; the argument being that this necessarily includes the right of a writer to remain anonymous.

The section under which defendant was charged provides: “No person shall distribute any hand-bill in any place under any circumstances, which does not have printed on the cover, or the face thereof, the name and address of the following: (a) The person who printed, wrote, compiled or manufactured the same, (b) The person who caused the same to be distributed; provided, however, that in the case of a fictitious person or club, in addition to such fictitious name, the true names and addresses of the owners, managers or agents of the person sponsoring said hand-bill shall also appear thereon. ”

Freedom of speech and of the press are part of our fundamental liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and while this provision is not a restraint upon the power of the states, the states are under the same restraint by force of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(Grosjean

American Press Co.

(1935), 297 U.S. 233, 244 [56 S.Ct. 444, 446, 80 L. Ed. 660, 665].) This freedom is also guaranteed by article I, section 9, of the California Constitution which provides that

*Supp. 846

“Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects,

being responsible for the abuse of that right

(emphasis added); and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.

The “abuse” provision in the California Constitution is similarly found in the Constitutions of 43 other states (Chafee, Free Speech in the United States, p. 5, n. 2). The rest of the states have a shorter guarantee comparable to that contained in the United States Constitution in which this responsibility for abuse has been of necessity implied. (See

People v. Arnold

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PATROSSO, J.

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