Justices OK Air Terminal Soliciting Ban

In a decision that limits the right to free speech in public buildings, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that an airport can ban from its terminal all solicitors seeking donations, but said organizations have a right to pass out leaflets and other material.

The hallways of an airport terminal are not akin to streets and sidewalks, the court said, but rather are designed to serve busy travelers, who may be impeded and thus pressured to contribute.

Therefore, airport managers may clear out all people who are asking for money, whether for religious, political or charitable purposes, the justices said on a 6-3 vote.

“The government need not permit all forms of speech on property that it owns and controls,” wrote Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in the decision that bans soliciting.

However, on a separate 5-4 vote, the court said religious and political advocates have a right to distribute leaflets and other materials in the airport terminals.

Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, two moderate conservatives, cast the key votes by first upholding the ban on money solicitations, but then insisting that leafletting is protected under the First Amendment.

Both said an encounter with a person seeking money “is more intrusive and intimidating” than being handed a leaflet, and for that reason, it can be prohibited entirely in a government-owned facility.

The decision on soliciting, in a New York case, reverses lower court rulings dating from the early 1970s that gave groups such as the International Society of Krishna Consciousness a First Amendment right to seek contributions in airports and other publicly owned terminals.

The decision could have an immediate impact in Los Angeles, where the Board of Airport Commissioners has been trying for years to remove solicitors from the international airport.

In 1987, the airport authority appealed to the Supreme Court seeking to enforce a total ban on “First Amendment activities” in the terminals. But the justices, agreeing with lower court judges, struck down this regulation as so broadly worded that it could outlaw a face-to-face conversation or the sale of a newspaper.

But Friday’s decision clears the way for the airport authority to try again.

“This (decision) says they have the authority to do it if they choose. And they may wish to ban it (soliciting) completely,” said John Werlich, an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles who advises the appointed airport commissioners.

The ruling may also give cities a new opening to try to keep panhandlers out of subways and other such areas, lawyers said.

In the early 1940s, the Supreme Court struck down a series of city laws directed at Jehovah’s Witnesses that prohibited door-to-door soliciting and ruled that the First Amendment protects soliciting for money.

In Friday’s decision, Rehnquist said those rulings do not apply to airports because these buildings are constructed to move passengers, not to provide a “public forum” for free speech. He noted, however, solicitors remain free to ask for money on the sidewalks outside a terminal building.

A spokesman for the Krishna society, whose followers, known as Hare Krishnas, distribute religious tracts and ask for donations, called the ruling a “blow against religious freedom.”

“It is sad that in a country founded on religious freedom the nation’s highest court could rule that a religious group has no right to accept donations in exchange for its scriptures in a public place like an airport,” said Anuttama Dasa, a spokesman for the Krishna organization.

Barry A. Fisher, a Los Angeles attorney who had represented the Krishnas in their fights with various airport authorities since 1974 and in Friday’s case, agreed that the ruling marked a sharp setback.

“This decision uses a meat-cleaver approach,” he said, by eliminating soliciting rather than regulating it.

But Fisher said California courts may still forbid a total ban on soliciting. In the past, the state Supreme Court has often interpreted the California Constitution as creating a broader right to free speech than is found in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Friday’s decision climaxed a 17-year-old legal battle between the Krishnas and the Port Authority of New York, which controls that area’s three major airports: JFK, Newark and LaGuardia. In 1986, 78,846,000 passengers moved through those terminals.

After attempts to regulate solicitors, the Port Authority in 1988 issued a stiff new regulation. The “solicitation and receipt of funds” was prohibited in the terminal, as was the “sale or distribution of flyers, brochures, pamphlets, books or any other printed or written material.”

Lawyers for the Krishna society sued the Port Authority’s superintendent, Walter Lee, contending that the regulation violated the First Amendment. A federal judge agreed, striking down the policy. Since the terminal hallways were “the functional equivalent of public streets,” the airport must be considered a “public forum” where all manner of free speech is allowed, the judge said.

Two years ago, however, Rehnquist concluded for a 5-4 majority that the sidewalks leading to a post office were not a “public forum,” and therefore, political and charitable groups could be prevented from passing out leaflets there.

Rehnquist, joined by Justices Byron R. White, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said soliciting and leafletting could be banned entirely in the airports because the terminals are not a “public forum.”

In a separate opinion, O’Connor agreed that airports were not a public forum and that soliciting could be banned. She disagreed, however, that leafletting could be banned. For his part, Kennedy said the airports were a public forum and reached the same ultimate conclusion: Soliciting could be banned, but not leafletting.

Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, voted to allow soliciting and leafletting. While the majority said those seeking money can be coercive and intimidating, Souter disputed that notion.

Two Cases Yet To Be Decided

The Supreme Court Friday handed down five decisions, leaving two cases yet to be decided before the justices close out their 1991-92 term. The term is expected to conclude Monday. The remaining cases:

Abortion: The validity of a restrictive Pennsylvania abortion law that, among other things, imposes a 24-hour waiting period and requires married women in most cases to tell their husbands about their plans to have an abortion.

Property rights: A dispute from South Carolina in which the court is being asked to decide whether the Constitution requires compensation when government bars all development or economic use of a landowner’s property to promote public safety or welfare.

In each case the justices either must issue a decision, order a new round of arguments next fall or issue an order stating that the case never should have been granted review.

Source: Times wire services