explaining that “focus[ing] RFRA’s ‘substantial burden’ inquiry on the nexus between religious practice and religious tenet” “adher[es] to RFRA’s plain text,” “avoids expanding RFRA’s coverage beyond what Congress intended,” and “prevent[s] RFRA claims from being reduced into questions of fact”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that “focus[ing] RFRA’s ‘substantial burden’ inquiry on the nexus between religious practice and religious tenet” “adher[es] to RFRA’s plain text,” “avoids expanding RFRA’s coverage beyond what Congress intended,” and “prevent[s] RFRA claims from being reduced into questions of fact”
- finding the defacement 10 statute was not unconstitutional as applied to defendant who was chalking anti- 11 abortion messages on street outside the White House “[b]ecause the District did 12 not curtail Mahoney’s means of expression altogether”
- noting that the statute at issue criminalized conduct that is “clearly 21 expressive,” including “painting, drawing, or writing,” as well as conduct “like 1 vandalizing or physically damaging property” which is “primarily destructive and 2 only secondarily expressive”
- concluding that judicial inquiry into the substantiality of the burden “prevent[s] RFRA claims from being reduced into questions of fact, proven by the credibility of the claimant”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with and join the Court’s thorough and well-crafted opinion in its entirety. As the Court holds, the District of Columbia may prohibit defacement of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. The prohibition is a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction for purposes of First Amendment doctrine.
I add these few words simply because I do not want the fog of First Amendment doctrine to make this case seem harder than it is. No one has a First Amendment right to deface government property. No one has a First Amendment right, for example, to spray-paint the Washington Monument or smash the windows of a police car. As Justice Rehnquist succinctly said: “One who burns down the factory of a company whose products he dislikes can expect his First Amendment defense to a consequent arson prosecution to be given short shrift by the courts.... The same fate would doubtless await the First Amendment claim of one prosecuted for destruction of government property after he defaced a speed limit sign in order to protest the stated speed limit.” Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 594 , 94 S.Ct. 1242 , 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting on separate point). When, as here, the Government applies a restriction on defacement in a content-neutral and viewpoint-neutral fashion, there can be no serious First Amendment objection. See, e.g., City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 809-10 , 104 S.Ct. 2118 , 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984); Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 160-61 , 60 S.Ct. 146 , 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939).