Posted on 01/14/2021 1:11:38 PM PST by Titus-Maximus
States generally protect the rights of private property owners to enact regulations governing political protests, demonstrations and similar activities on their properties. One notable exception is in the State of California, which has generally granted broad constitutional protections to individuals and groups to enter on shopping centers for such activities since the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Robins v. Pruneyard in 1980. In the Pruneyard case, local high school students set up a table in the courtyard of the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, California, seeking to solicit support for their opposition to a U.N. resolution. A security guard at the shopping center advised the students that their activities violated the shopping center’s policy against publicly expressive activity and asked the students to leave. The students brought an action in the California Superior Court seeking an injunction prohibiting the owner from denying them access to the shopping center. The California Superior Court held the students did not have either a federal or state constitutional right to exercise their asserted rights on the shopping center property. The California Court of Appeals affirmed the Superior Court’s decision, but the California Supreme Court reversed the decision of the California Court of Appeals finding that the provisions of the California constitution permitted the students to exercise their activities as the shopping center. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court and held that the exercise of the rights of free expression did not constitute a taking under the Fifth Amendment and did not constitute a denial of the owner’s property without due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Pruneyard case followed a line of cases beginning in 1946 that saw the pendulum swing from favoring protecting the rights of individuals or groups to protecting the rights of shopping center owners. In Marsh v. Alabama, decided in 1946, the defendant was convicted in Alabama state court of trespass for remaining on the business district of a “company-owned town” to distribute religious literature after being warned to leave. The defendant claimed the conviction violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state court and held the state could not impose criminal punishment for distributing religious literature and the state statute violated the rights granted by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In rendering its decision, the U.S. Supreme Court stated “[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”
"the California Supreme Court reversed the decision of the California Court of Appeals finding that the provisions of the California constitution permitted the students to exercise their activities as the shopping center. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court and held that the exercise of the rights of free expression did not constitute a taking under the Fifth Amendment and did not constitute a denial of the owner’s property without due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment."
The review of these cases suggests that Social Media is very much a public space that is owned privately and thus the owners cannot forbid the exercise of free speech.
This same outcome happened in the State of NJ in 1994.
https://www.rcfp.org/new-jersey-shopping-malls-must-allow-protestors-court-rules/
Apparently does not apply to those who advocate a pro-life position
Keeping demonstrators, agitators, solicitors, protestors and proselytizers out of shopping malls is a good thing.
Witness the continued erosion and eventual making of the 1st Amendment (and eventually the Constitution) null-in-void.
Take it to court and watch the liberals tie the logic up in knots. These malls are “common public places” or ‘thoroughfares’, and the courts have determined that the owners could not deny people access to picket or speak. In my mind that is very close to the social media model. Social media sites are public places first and foremost, designed for speech and selling of products. I find it difficult to believe a judge could rule differently in this case.
Would I be surprised? The Left is known for its hypocrisy.
Er, then how could the exercise of the property owners' free expression not to contribute their property to the promotion of those views be a taking?
What a bizarre position the court took. (Pardon my pointing out the obvious, but I am seeing socialist absurdity with new eyes these days.)
This is when liberals cared about free speech, in a big way, maybe too big, and it was not that long ago. It is a possible attack against social media censorship by using these arguments, and ask yourself - would today’s judges reverse these lefty positions and strengthen property rights, just because they hate Trump? Any Stare Decisis fans out there?
People who keep saying “private property” don’t know these cases.
It was just temporary to kick in the door and shut it behind them.
I’d like to see Trump and others sue Twitter, Facebook, and the rest, using these cases as precedent.
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