Defendants rely on the case of Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 [69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131]. Terminiello was convicted of disorderly conduct after speaking in an auditorium under [*366] the auspices of the Christian Veterans of America. Outside the auditorium an angry and turbulent crowd gathered to protest the meeting. The crowd hurled rocks through the windows, broke down doors, and threatened to get beyond police control while Terminiello vigorously condemned them. Terminiello's speech, including his anti-Jewish epithets, provoked the audience to expressions of immediate anger, unrest, and alarm. The trial court instructed the jury it might find Terminiello guilty of inducing a breach of the peace if his behavior stirred the public to anger, invited dispute, brought about a condition of unrest, created a disturbance, or [***8] molested the inhabitants in the enjoyment of peace and quiet by arousing alarm.
Terminiello's conviction was held to violate the constitutional guarantee of free speech. "The ordinance as construed by the trial court seriously invaded this province. It permitted conviction of petitioner if his speech stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest. A conviction resting on any of those grounds may not stand." (337 U.S. at p. 5.)
The prosecution challenges the applicability of Terminiello and in its brief squarely poses the legal issue between the parties to this case thus: "There emerges from this position [of defendants] the following legal proposition: That these five pickets had a constitutional right to dress in Nazi uniforms with helmets and swastika armbands, to go to the Shrine Auditorium carrying placards saying, 'Zionism is Treason', [etc.]; to march into a dense crowd they knew to be mostly Jewish, attending a celebration of the 15th Anniversary of Israel, and that the pickets had a right to do this regardless of the fact that it would inflame the crowd to violence. We are unable to agree that this is the law."
The prosecution [***9] goes on to argue that this activity of the defendants "was a highly insulting and aggressive act that does not permit [them] to claim that when the expectable violence occurred they were merely acting in self-defense."
CA(1)(1) Nonetheless, we think the existence of a constitutional right to speak, demonstrate, and picket on behalf of causes known [**60] to be highly offensive to those picketed was settled in Terminiello, where the court upheld such a right in sweeping terms and ruled that HN1under the First Amendment it cannot be made an offense "merely to invite dispute, or to bring about a condition of unrest." (337 U.S. at p. 6.)
I'd also be interested to hear the answer to this question.
