holding that, although Pennsylvania constitution provides more expansive protection of free speech than federal constitution, it does not confer right to solicit signatures for gubernatorial candidate’s nominating petition in privately owned shopping mall
How later courts described this case
- holding that, although Pennsylvania constitution provides more expansive protection of free speech than federal constitution, it does not confer right to solicit signatures for gubernatorial candidate’s nominating petition in privately owned shopping mall
- holding that a private shopping mall was not a public forum, so that individuals had no constitutionally protected right to solicit signatures for political purposes on the premises
- stating that the drafters of our state charter adhered to theories of natural law philosophers
- noting that the drafters of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 adhered to the theories of Locke, Montesquieu, “and other natural law philosophers”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
The issue before us is whether one who invites the public to his property for commercial purposes is required to allow others to use the land and occasion to express, or solicit for, their world views. Had we not been treated to the poristic thickets in the plurality’s disquisition we might, under the specific facts of this case, have said plainly that the answer is NO, leaving the ifs, ands, buts, or maybes to other factual contexts.
We should not lose sight of the fact that persons who own and operate shopping malls are merchants. As such they should not be required to provide forum, place, or occasion for speech making, petition signing, parades, or cracker barrels, to discuss local or global events. They are in business for business sake. They are not municipalities, states, or villages, and however romantic it may be to believe that the public repair to these galvanic places, of a Saturday morning, for more than bread and salt, they are not yet instruments of the state.
I concur only in the result. 1
. Neither am I prepared to accept the reasoning of Commonwealth v. Tate, 495 Pa. 158 , 432 A.2d 1382 (1981) under the present facts.