holding that the Court possessed jurisdic- tion over a case but nonetheless declining to exercise it because the Court’s policy against issuing gratuitous constitutional opinions “has not been limited to jurisdictional determinations”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the Court possessed jurisdic- tion over a case but nonetheless declining to exercise it because the Court’s policy against issuing gratuitous constitutional opinions “has not been limited to jurisdictional determinations”
- speaking of this principle of avoidance as a "policy" and establishing that its "applicability can be determined only by an exercise of judgment relative to the particular presentation, though relative also to the policy generally and to the degree in which the specific factors rendering it applicable are exemplified in the particular case"
- indicating that a "mere identification" requirement for the latter activity would be constitutional
- noting canon that “constitutional issues affecting legislation will not be determined ... if a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Murphy,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas concurs,
dissenting.
It is difficult for me to believe that the opinion of the Supreme Court of California is so ambiguous that the precise constitutional issues in this case have become too blurred for our powers of discernment.
The courts below and the parties involved have all acted on the assumption that the appellant Murdock was charged with having violated §§ 44.09 (a) and 44.12 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code. Now it is true that various other parts of the Code are interconnected with those sections and serve to complicate the picture somewhat. But the constitutional issues thereby raised seem clear to me. Simply stated, they are: (1) Does it violate the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion to prohibit solicitors of religious charities from using boxes or receptacles in public places except by written permission of city officials? (2) Is that guarantee infringed by a requirement that such solictors display an information card issued by city officials?
Those issues were properly raised below and the courts necessarily passed upon them. The time is thus ripe for this Court to supply the definitive judicial answers. Its failure to do so in this case forces me to register this dissent.