Pubdate: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 Source: New York Times (NY) Section: National Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Linda Greenhouse SUPREME COURT ROUNDUP Justices Revisit Anonymity In Door-To-Door Canvassing WASHINGTON -- Six years after ruling that the Constitution protects the right to distribute anonymous campaign literature, the Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether that right extends to anonymous door-to-door advocacy for a political or religious cause. The new case is an appeal by the Jehovah's Witnesses, whose victories in a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1930's and 1940's helped to define the modern contours of the First Amendment. The group is challenging a Stratton, Ohio, ordinance that requires anyone seeking to engage in door-to-door advocacy -- which the Witnesses regard as an essential part of their public ministry -- to obtain and display a permit that includes the advocate's name. In upholding the ordinance earlier this year, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that a 1995 Supreme Court decision that protected anonymous political leafleting was not applicable to door-to-door advocates or canvassers because "the very act of going door-to-door requires the canvassers to reveal a portion of their identities." Although Jehovah's Witnesses try to get people to discuss the Bible, the issue before the court applies beyond religion to all cause-related speech. In fact, the justices turned down a portion of the appeal that specifically raised the issue of which constitutional standard to apply to government restrictions on religious speech. The court granted review only on the anonymity issue. In their appeal, the Witnesses quoted from the majority opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens in the earlier anonymous leaflet case: "Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority." That decision, McIntyre v. Ohio, struck down a state law that made it a crime to distribute any "political communication" that did not include the responsible person's name and address. While also from Ohio, the new case, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society v. Stratton, Ohio, No. 00-1737, concerns an ordinance adopted in 1998 by a village with a population of under 300, on Ohio's border with West Virginia. Stratton had a history of uneasiness toward Jehovah's Witnesses, who came from their nearby congregation in Wellsville to conduct their ministry on the village's doorsteps. According to trial testimony, Mayor John M. Abdalla told a group of Jehovah's Witnesses shortly before the ordinance was adopted that they were not permitted in Stratton and that people had moved to Stratton to avoid them. The ordinance requires anyone who wants to go to a private residence for the "purposes of advertising, promoting, selling and/or explaining any product, service, organization or cause" to register and obtain a permit from the mayor's office. In its original form, later changed, the ordinance gave residents a line to check to indicate explicitly that they did not want to be visited by Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses, members of a Christian denomination that dates to the late 19th century, have brought more than two dozen Supreme Court cases over the years, winning the right for their children not to have to salute the American flag and for their adherents to conduct their in-person religious mission. The court's rulings in these cases have established broad constitutional protection for political dissenters and religious minorities. These were among other developments at the court today: State Immunity The justices agreed to review a federal appeals court's decision that states were constitutionally immune from suit by private parties before federal administrative agencies. The case raises a federalism issue from which the Bush administration tried to deflect the court's attention. Building on the Supreme Court's recent rulings that have greatly expanded the scope of state constitutional immunity, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled earlier this year that the Federal Maritime Commission could not adjudicate a cruise line's dispute with the South Carolina State Ports Authority, a state agency that operates the Port of Charleston. The Fourth Circuit's opinion effectively nullified the maritime commission's authority over state ports. The appeals court based its decision loosely on the 11th Amendment, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to protect states from being sued in federal court. In a 1999 Supreme Court case, Alden v. Maine, the justices ruled that the broader principle of sovereign immunity also shielded states from suit in their own courts. At issue in the new case, Federal Maritime Commission v. South Carolina State Ports Authority, No. 01-46, is the validity of the Fourth Circuit's conclusion that state immunity extends beyond any court, shielding states from being called before federal administrative agencies. "A state's sovereign immunity is not so fleeting as to depend upon the forum in which the state is sued," the appeals court said. The Fourth Circuit was the first federal appeals court to adopt this theory, although cases raising the same question are now pending in courts nationwide. While authorizing the maritime commission to file its own appeal to the Supreme Court, the Bush administration did not support that appeal. In a brief filed last month, Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson told the court that while the Fourth Circuit's decision was "incorrect" and an undue departure from the text of the 11th Amendment, the court should not review the case because the Fourth Circuit had stopped short of declaring unambiguously that the Shipping Act of 1984 was unconstitutional. It is this law that gives the maritime commission authority to adjudicate private complaints against state-operated ports. The complaint against the Charleston port was brought by South Carolina Maritime Services Inc. after the port authority refused it permission to berth its ships there. The company conducts gambling cruises in international waters. Arrest Warrant Four justices agreed that an arrest warrant that authorized the police in Toledo, Ohio, to break into the home of a woman suspected of selling drugs was unconstitutional because it had been issued on the basis of a complaint that lacked any detail about how the police knew of any crime. Although it takes the votes of only four justices to grant a case, the court did not grant the appeal brought by the woman, Desarie Overton, of a decision by the Ohio Court of Appeals. Instead, the four justices, Stephen G. Breyer, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter, said the state court's decision upholding the arrest warrant was so clearly wrong that the Supreme Court should simply overturn it summarily rather than setting the case for a full hearing. To overturn the decision would have taken five votes, however, and a fifth vote was evidently not forthcoming. So the four justices had to content themselves with a statement by Justice Breyer calling attention to the lower court's error. The case was Overton v. Ohio, No. 00-9769. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth