Facts
- New Hampshire law barred parades or processions on public streets without a special license issued by local officials; violations were punishable by fine.
- About 68 Jehovah’s Witnesses marched in Manchester’s business district in small groups, in close single-file formation along sidewalks.
- Participants carried placards with informational messages and distributed leaflets.
- The march occurred without applying for or obtaining the required license.
- The marchers were convicted in municipal court; after a jury trial in Superior Court they were again convicted and fined.
- The state’s highest court affirmed, construing the licensing authority as limited to regulating street use for safety and convenience rather than controlling message content.
- The defendants challenged the statute and licensing fee as violating freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship under the First Amendment as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Issues
- Whether a state may require a license for parades or processions on public streets without violating the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the state may charge a licensing fee for such a permit consistent with the First Amendment.
- Whether the permitting scheme, as construed and applied, conferred arbitrary or censorial discretion on licensing officials.
Decision
- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the convictions.
- The Court held that, as authoritatively construed by the state court, the statute was a permissible regulation of the time, place, and manner of using public streets.
- The Court upheld a license fee that is reasonably related to administrative and police costs associated with the procession.
- The Court found no showing that the statute was administered arbitrarily, discriminatorily, or as a device to suppress disfavored ideas.
Legal Principles
- Government may regulate the use of public streets to protect safety and convenience, consistent with constitutional freedoms in an ordered society.
- A permit requirement for parades and processions is constitutional when it is content-neutral and limited to managing competing uses of streets (time, place, and manner).
- Licensing officials may not be given censorial power to approve or deny speech based on its content; discretion must be confined to traffic, safety, and related street-management concerns.
- A licensing fee is permissible if it is reasonably adjusted to cover administrative and public-order expenses and is not used to burden expression.
- Absent evidence of discriminatory or arbitrary enforcement, a neutral permitting system applied evenhandedly does not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments.
Conclusion
The Court upheld a parade-permit statute and a cost-based fee as constitutional because the scheme, as construed, limited official discretion to traffic and safety concerns and did not authorize censorship or discriminatory suppression of expression.