Sanctity of Human Life Network v. California Highway Patrol

As will soon become apparent, I strongly disagree with the majority’s analysis—an analysis that should be terrifying to any person who drives on a freeway.

As the parties and the trial court recognized, this case poses a relatively straightforward question. Is a freeway overpass a public forum that demonstrators can use to communicate their message to freeway motorists passing below?

In declining to decide this question, the majority takes a wrong turn that in effect invites groups or individuals to demonstrate on freeway overpasses, leaving them and the California Highway Patrol with the burden of litigating over the use of freeway overpasses case by case, overpass by overpass, throughout the state—with the outcome depending on how much traffic congestion that a particular demonstration causes. In other words, the parties will be obligated to hit the road again, through future litigation, in an effort to obtain judicial answers to the questions they pose.

And the majority’s decision will burden freeway motorists with the danger that its approach will create. After all, the purpose of demonstrating on a freeway overpass is to cause freeway motorists to take their eyes and…

Members of the Sanctity of Human Life Network (plaintiffs) stood on sidewalks of freeway overpasses during rush hours and held signs, visible to motorists below on the freeways, communicating their views concerning abortion. Responding to reports of freeway congestion caused by plaintiffs’ activities, officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) directed plaintiffs to terminate their activities.

Plaintiffs filed this injunctive and declaratory relief action, seeking to enjoin the CHP from interfering with their display of handheld signs on freeway overpasses during rush hours on January 22, the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113 [ 93 S.Ct. 705 , 35 L.Ed.2d 147 ]. After trial, the court entered judgment in favor of the CHP.

We find that the statutes, Vehicle Code sections 21465 and 21467, under which the CHP claimed the power to terminate plaintiffs’ activities, do not apply to plaintiffs’ activities. However, we also conclude the CHP, under the facts presented at trial, acted appropriately pursuant to its authority to direct traffic. (See Veh. Code, § 2410.) We further conclude that the CHP’s actions in this…

I fully concur in Justice Nicholson’s well-reasoned analysis and conclusion that the California Highway Patrol (CHP) may not rely on *874 Vehicle Code sections 21465 and 21467 as authority to interfere with plaintiffs’ activities under the facts presented, but acted properly in dispersing plaintiffs under Vehicle Code section 2410.

I write separately to emphasize my disagreement with several aspects of my dissenting colleague’s views. I disagree with his cataclysmic vision of the havoc that will be wreaked when citizens are permitted to exercise their First Amendment rights on public property within sight of a freeway. I do not share his view of police power: that we presume police authority to act absent a constitutional prohibition to the contrary. And while I agree with the majority that we need not reach the issue in this case, I am not persuaded by the dissent’s public forum analysis.

The dissent evokes images of freeways strewn with human carcasses and wrecked automobiles—the detritus of high-speed collisions between drivers distracted by activity on freeway overpasses—overpasses teeming with demonstrators competing to display their messages to the motoring public. There…

Members of the Sanctity of Human Life Network (plaintiffs) stood on sidewalks of freeway overpasses during rush hours and held signs, visible to motorists below on the freeways, communicating their views concerning abortion. Responding to reports of freeway congestion caused by plaintiffs' activities, officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) directed plaintiffs to terminate their activities.

Plaintiffs filed this injunctive and declaratory relief action, seeking to enjoin the CHP from interfering with their display of handheld signs on freeway overpasses during rush hours on January 22, the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113 , 93 S.Ct. 705 , 35 L.Ed.2d 147 . After trial, the court entered judgment in favor of the CHP.

We find that the statutes, Vehicle Code sections 21465 and 21467, under which the CHP claimed the power to terminate plaintiffs' activities, do not apply to plaintiffs' activities. However, we also conclude the CHP, under the facts presented at trial, acted appropriately pursuant to its authority to direct traffic. (See Veh.Code, § 2410.) We further conclude that the CHP's actions in…