165 A.D.2d 382 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1991
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
Petitioners seek an order under CPLR article 78 to prohibit respondent Justice George Roberts from enforcing his judgment and order requiring petitioners, on penalty of being relieved or held in contempt, to remove a political button from their lapels which states "Ready To Strike”.
The incident in question took place in Part 30 of the New York Supreme Court, Criminal Term, where only arraignments, initial plea bargaining and motion practice are conducted. Hearings and trials with witnesses and jurors are conducted in other courtrooms.
On October 4, 1990, petitioner Robin Frankel an attorney employed by petitioner Legal Aid Society was ordered to remove the "Ready To Strike” button from her lapel. When she refused to do so, she was summarily removed as counsel for petitioner Albert Smith who was a criminal defendant in a proceeding now pending before Justice George Roberts and an "18-B” attorney was assigned to represent him. Petitioner Troy Yancey, also an attorney employed by the Legal Aid Society, on the same date, was ordered to remove a similar button from her lapel. On her refusal to do so she was ordered from the court and instructed not to return to represent any defendant while wearing that button.
Judge Roberts announced he would relieve the Legal Aid Society as counsel whenever a case was called if the Legal Aid attorney wore a "Ready To Strike” button. He stated further, that on the next day any such attorney would be summarily held in contempt and an appropriate sanction imposed. Justice Roberts sought to explain that he was not taking any position on the threatened strike but would not have the attorneys "politicizing” an issue "extraneous to the work that is conducted in this courtroom.”
Justice Roberts has on his own accord stayed his order upon petitioner’s agreement to file this article 78 application and seek an expeditious determination.
In La Rocca v Lane (37 NY2d 575, cert denied 424 US 968) a priest-lawyer, working for the Legal Aid Society as a defense attorney, brought an article 78 proceeding because the Trial
We find that the mere act of wearing a button which has some expression of political import, under the circumstances herein, is an exercise of speech protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and article I, § 8 of the NY Constitution. While the Trial Judge had the inherent power, in fact the obligation, to require order in the courtroom, the right of an individual under the First Amendment may not be limited or subordinated in his freedom of expression to anything less than the absolute requirement to prevent the obstruction of justice. " '[T]rial courts . . . must be on guard against confusing offenses to their sensibilities with obstruction to the administration of justice.’ ” (In re Little, 404 US 553, 555, quoting Brown v United States, 356 US 148, 153.)
The freedom of expression protection afforded by the First Amendment and article I, §8 unquestionably extends to the courtroom. "Every citizen lawfully present in a public place has a right to engage in peaceable and orderly expression that is not incompatible with the primary activity of the place in question, whether that place is a school, a library, a private lunch counter, the grounds of a statehouse, the grounds of the United States Capitol, a bus terminal, an airport, or a welfare
As such, it clearly presented no "serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice”. (See, Craig v Harney, 331 US 367, 373.) "[W]hile it is the duty of a Judge to preserve order and to insure that justice is not obstructed, it nevertheless follows that any order or regulation imposed upon attorneys practising before him, must be based upon factual conditions which leave no doubt that a continuance of the proscribed conduct will result in a disrespect for order and an impairment in the administration of justice. To this end, therefore, any such order or rule must have a reasonable or plausible basis, else this discretionary power is subject to being declared arbitrarily exercised” (Matter of Peck v Stone, 32 AD2d 506, 508 [order of Judge prohibiting female attorney from wearing miniskirt in courtroom was arbitrary]).
In addition, petitioners contend, and it is not disputed, that Justice Roberts took issue not with the fact that petitioners wore buttons but with the message expressed. Thus, petitioners assert he told them that he would permit the wearing of "Save the Whales” buttons. What obviously concerned him was the content of the button itself which he felt would be "unsettling” to the client.
Our Court of Appeals has noted the different approach that must be taken when there is an official attempt to restrict content of speech as compared with its time, place and manner. "The State is permitted considerably more latitude in restricting the time, place and manner of speech than it is when it attempts to restrict content. Time, place and manner restriction are valid if reasonable and rationally related to legitimate State interests. Content or subject matter may be regulated only if substantial State interests are involved and then the regulation may go no further than necessary to serve that interest.” (Matter of von Wiegen, 63 NY2d 163, 171.) "[U]nder the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the
Thus, the record before us does not demonstrate a "compelling” State interest necessitating the Justice’s complete ban on the mere display of the small button with a particular political message. (See, Perry Educ. Assn. v Perry Local Educators’ Assn., supra, at 45.) Indeed, in light of the fact the button was worn in a nonjury courtroom, there was no showing of any "significant” governmental interest which would be served by a blanket ban, under the circumstances, in the place, manner and time of display (see, Regan v Time, Inc., 468 US 641, 648). The presumption of the court that the button had an "unsettling” and disruptive effect was made, without any inquiry or other factual foundation, and was therefore an improvident exercise of the court’s authority to control the courtroom and the proper administration of justice. (See, Matter of Peck v Stone, supra.) In addition, the court’s action violated the First Amendment and article I, § 8 free speech rights of petitioners.
"The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. It is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a more capable citizenry and more perfect polity and in the belief that no other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests.” (Cohen v California, 403 US 15, 24.)
Accordingly, the application by petitioners pursuant to
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring). The court’s ruling in this case summarily dissolved the lawyer-client relationship in two pending criminal cases based upon conduct which it allegedly perceived as impairing that relationship, namely, the lawyer’s in-court display of a lapel button containing the legend "Ready To Strike”. It also appears that in a subsequent conference on the matter the Judge indicated a toleration for the button display of some other opinions, citing as a permissible example the oceanic environmentalists’ crusade to "Save the Whales”.
If the choice had to be made between saving the lawyers or saving the whales, there is little doubt that the overwhelming majority of Americans would come down on the side of the whales. But the fact that the Calendar Judge here found himself allied with that majority must be the beginning and not the end of our review. In this case the Attorney-General, defending on appeal the challenged ruling which instantly discharged each lawyer who wore the offending "Ready To Strike” lapel button, seems to acknowledge that the controversy is not to be resolved by such a content analysis of the assertive message. First Amendment rights, it is conceded, cannot be automatically left to the not always tender tyranny of the majority viewpoint. The justification for the order raised before us (albeit not too clearly advanced in the record itself) is that a Legal Aid client, viewing the button for the first time, might undergo a tremor of unease, as expressed in the Attorney-General’s brief, "by causing the indigent criminal defendant to lose confidence in the system’s ability to guarantee him his constitutional right to vigorous representation.” This argument, implicating as it does the "undivided loyalty” to the client required of an attorney (see, People v Ortiz, 76 NY2d 652, 656), is worthy of our focused attention.
No stronger statement in Anglo-American law of the single-minded duty owed by attorney to client can be found than that of Henry Brougham, who at the pinnacle of his career
This stirring formulation had even its 19th century critics (Chief Justice Cockburn among them)
The Attorney-General embraces the court’s assumption that a client’s morale would necessarily be shaken once the mes
(1) The order did not enjoin future private disclosure by counsel to the client of the labor dispute and the ensuing prospect of a strike; neither was the court concerned with any disclosure in the past. The defendant-morale problem did not seem significant outside the four walls of the courtroom. Nor did the disclosure which actually occurred here of an impending strike, prior to any intervention by the Judge, appear to cause any turmoil inside the courtroom. In any event, the court made no such findings.
(2) It is not beyond all conjecture, subject only to repudiation by competent proof, that some clients might find the button message encouraging, suggesting as it does that his advocate possesses a certain energetic militancy and willingness to defy "the establishment”.
(3) There is a type of experienced client, not unknown to the criminal Bar, who has learned that a swift and efficient disposition of his pending matter is ofttimes less advantageous to him than a lame and halting progress, beset by delays and obstructions at every turn. The heart of such a client, had he stood alongside one of these appellant lawyers in IAS Part 30 on October 4, 1990, before Judge Roberts, might well have leaped up to behold the message of the button, holding out, as it does, the prospect of a strike which hopefully would serve to postpone the day of reckoning in his case. Delay in a criminal case, as such a client knows, plays into his hands far more frequently than those of the People.
Since, therefore, the order rests entirely on an unproven assumption, the validity of which is dubious at best, the arraignment court’s summary directive constituted an arbitrary exercise of judicial power, and must be reversed on that ground.
. 2 Trial of Queen Caroline 8 (J. Nightingale ed 1821), cited in Fried, The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer-Client Relationship, 85 Yale LJ 1060, n 1.
. In 1864, at a dinner attended by the then-86-year-old Brougham, Cockburn observed: "The arms which an Advocate wields, he ought to use as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the interests of his clients per fas, but not per nefas. He ought to know how to reconcile the interests of his client with the eternal interests of truth and justice.” (Megarry, A Second Miscellany-at-Law, at 36 [Stevens & Sons Ltd., 1973].)
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting, in part). A courtroom is not a place for the unrestricted marketing of ideas. The petitioner was free to wear a button outside the courtroom and even to picket outside the courthouse. (See, Wise, One-Day Work Stoppage by Legal Aid Lawyers, NYLJ, Jan. 30, 1991, at 1, col 3.)
Petitioner and her colleagues were in the courtroom to represent clients. They were not spectators. The Court of
A Judge may or can be perturbed by irrelevant issues or by the impingement of a threat to the repose necessary for judicious consideration of the problems before her or him. The petitioner is an officer of the court. She should have assisted in rather than resisted attaining that end.
The majority here assumes that the Judge was concerned with the offense to his sensibilities rather than with the due administration of justice. No such assumption can be made. That I would not have reacted as the Judge did and perhaps have made a poor quip as to whether "strike” was a baseball term and the season was over, is beside the point. I do not take seriously the in terrorem effect of the statement on the button.
However, the Judge must have decorum in the court, and must have counsel who are in the courtroom for court business. The client must know that the lawyer is there for him or her and not for an extraneous labor issue.
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1.) It also applies to place, and the Judge had a right to rule that the button was not, with its comment, in the proper place at the proper time.
O
I would deny and dismiss the petition, without costs. I would, of course, allow the intervention by the union.
Application for a writ of prohibition granted, without costs.