Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250183
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
SIDEWALK NEWS RACK BAN EASED IN RULING
The Supreme Court made it harder Wednesday for communities to ban free distribution of advertising publications from sidewalk vending machines.In a 6-3 decision, the justices said Cincinnati officials violated free-speech rights by prohibiting the distribution of such magazines and brochures from 62 dispensers while allowing nearly 2,000 newspaper vending machines.
"Cincinnati has enacted a sweeping ban that bars from its sidewalks a whole class of constitutionally protected speech," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court. "We conclude that Cincinnati failed to justify that policy."
In two other decisions, the court:
Ruled in a Tennessee case that creditors may file late claims against bankrupt debtors if the deadline was missed because of a lawyer's error or neglect.
Said in a Utah case the Internal Revenue Service gets priority over some earlier claims by private creditors when the tax agency places a lien on someone's future holdings.
The Cincinnati case had been watched closely by free-speech experts because it was thought the court might use it to make sweeping changes in the constitutional protections afforded commercial speech.
Only one court member, Justice Harry Blackmun, voted for such changes.
"I hope the court ultimately . . . affords full protection for truthful, noncoercive commercial speech about lawful activities," Blackmun said in a concurring opinion.
"This is an important decision because the court has put some teeth in the constitutional protections for commercial speech," said Alan Slobodin, of the Washington Legal Foundation advocacy group.
Mark Yurick, a lawyer for Cincinnati, suggested the decision had radically departed from previous rulings on commercial speech.
"From what I can read, there is now no difference between truthful commercial speech that relates to non-commercial activity, and non-commercial speech. That wasn't the law before," Yurick said.
From 1942 to 1975, the court gave no protection to purely commercial advertising, leaving states free to regulate, or even ban, all ads.
But in a pair of rulings in 1975 and 1976, the court cited the "consumer's interest in the free flow of commercial information" to justify some constitutional protection for commercial speech.
Wednesday's ruling marked the first time the court has barred government from discriminating between the distribution of commercial and noncommercial speech. But Stevens called the decision a narrow one tied to the facts of the Cincinnati case.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Byron White and Clarence Thomas dissented.