| Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego
(No. 80-195)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ White ] | Concurrence
[ Brennan ] | Dissent
[ Stevens ] | Dissent
[ Burger ] | Dissent
[ Rehnquist ] |
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Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.
I agree substantially with the views expressed in the dissenting opinions of THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE STEVENS, and make only these two additional observations: (1) In a case where city planning commissions and zoning boards must regularly confront constitutional claims of this sort, it is a genuine misfortune to have the Court's treatment of the subject be a virtual Tower of Babel, from which no definitive principles can be clearly drawn; and (2) I regret even more [p570] keenly my contribution to this judicial clangor, but find that none of the views expressed in the other opinions written in the case come close enough to mine to warrant the necessary compromise to obtain a Court opinion.
In my view, the aesthetic justification alone is sufficient to sustain a total prohibition of billboards within a community, see Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 32-33 (1954), regardless of whether the particular community is "a historical community such as Williamsburg" or one as unsightly as the older parts of many of our major metropolitan areas. Such areas should not be prevented from taking steps to correct, as best they may, mistakes of their predecessors. Nor do I believe that the limited exceptions contained in the San Diego ordinance are the types which render this statute unconstitutional. The closest one is the exception permitting billboards during political campaigns, but I would treat this as a virtually self-limiting exception which will have an effect on the aesthetics of the city only during the periods immediately prior to a campaign. As such, it seems to me a reasonable outlet, limited as to time, for the free expression which the First and Fourteenth Amendments were designed to protect.
Unlike JUSTICE BRENNAN, I do not think a city should be put to the task of convincing a local judge that the elimination of billboards would have more than a negligible impact on aesthetics. Nothing in my experience on the bench has led me to believe that a judge is in any better position than a city or county commission to make decisions in an area such as aesthetics. Therefore, little can be gained in the area of constitutional law, and much lost in the process of democratic decisionmaking, by allowing individual judges in city after city to second-guess such legislative or administrative determinations.