## Facts

- Los Angeles regulated charitable solicitations through a detailed ordinance scheme, including rules for using fixed collection boxes and requiring permits and disclosures.
- A Rescue Army officer was charged in Municipal Court with violating three ordinance provisions; two resulting convictions were reversed by the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
- Before a third trial, Rescue Army and the officer sought a writ of prohibition in state appellate court to stop the municipal prosecution, claiming the ordinances violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The California Supreme Court denied the writ, upheld the ordinances’ validity, and confirmed the Municipal Court’s authority to proceed.
- The appellants sought U.S. Supreme Court review under the federal statute authorizing review of final state-court judgments raising federal questions.

## Issues

1. Whether the California Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of prohibition was a sufficiently “final” judgment to permit U.S. Supreme Court review.
2. Whether the Court should decide First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to the solicitation ordinances where the ordinance scheme and the specific charging theory had not been clearly construed in state proceedings.
3. Whether the challenged ordinances constituted unconstitutional prior restraints or otherwise violated freedoms of speech and religion (issue not reached).

## Decision

- The Court held it had appellate jurisdiction because the state court’s denial of prohibition finally resolved the federal challenge to the ordinances as the basis for the Municipal Court’s power to proceed.
- The Court declined to decide the constitutional questions because they were presented in an abstract posture, with unresolved construction questions about an interdependent ordinance scheme and unclear application to the pending prosecution.
- The appeal was dismissed without prejudice to later federal review after further state proceedings clarified the ordinances’ meaning and operation.

## Legal Principles

- A state high court’s denial of extraordinary relief can be “final” for federal review when it conclusively sustains the challenged law as the foundation for continuing state proceedings.
- Even when jurisdiction exists, the Supreme Court may withhold constitutional adjudication when the record is undeveloped or when state and local enactments have not been authoritatively construed in relation to the prosecution.
- Constitutional questions should be decided only when presented in a clean, concrete form, without serious uncertainty about the governing law’s interpretation or how it applies to the facts.

## Conclusion

The Court accepted that it could review the state judgment as final, but dismissed the appeal without prejudice, applying a restraint policy against deciding federal constitutional questions where state-law construction and the prosecution’s concrete theory remained uncertain.


Rescue Army v. Mun. Court, 331 U.S. 549 (1947)