Blakeslee v. St. Sauveur et al

Filing 17

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 13 Motion for Summary Judgment. So Ordered by Chief Judge William E. Smith on 10/07/14. (Jackson, Ryan)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
___________________________________
)
JOHN BLAKESLEE,
)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
)
C.A. No. 14-187 S
)
RICHARD ST. SAUVEUR, JR., in his
)
capacity as Chief of the Police
)
Department of the Town of
)
Smithfield, Rhode Island;
)
RANDY R. ROSSI, in his capacity
)
as Finance Director for the Town
)
of Smithfield, Rhode Island; and
)
PETER KILMARTIN, in his capacity
)
as Attorney General for the State )
of Rhode Island,
)
)
Defendants.
)
___________________________________)
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
WILLIAM E. SMITH, Chief Judge.
Pending

before

the

Court

is

Plaintiff

John

Blakeslee’s

unopposed Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 13).

For the

reasons set forth below, the motion is GRANTED.
The facts of this case are clear.

Plaintiff has previously

distributed anonymous written materials expressing his views on
issues of social and political concern.
same in the future.

He wishes to do the

However, Rhode Island General Laws § 17-23-

2 seemingly stands in Plaintiff’s way.

This statute, passed

first in 1923 and last amended in 1975, states (and we are not
making this up):
No person shall intentionally write, print, post, or
distribute, or cause to be written, printed, posted,
or distributed, a circular, flier, or poster designed
or tending to injure or defeat any candidate for
nomination or election to any public office, by
criticizing the candidate's personal character or
political action, or designed or tending to aid,
injure, or defeat any question submitted to the
voters, unless there appears upon the circular, flier,
or poster in a conspicuous place the name of the
author and either the names of the chairperson and
secretary, or of two (2) officers, of the political or
other organization issuing the poster, flier, or
circular, or of some voter who is responsible for it,
with the voter's name and residence, and the street
and numbers, if any.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-23-2.

Plaintiff brought the instant lawsuit

challenging the constitutionality of this statute.
surprisingly,
Attorney

none

General

of

of

the

Rhode

named

Defendants

Island,

whose

Perhaps not

(including

the

constitutional

and

statutory mandate is to defend acts of the General Assembly,
R.I. Const. art. IX, § 12, and R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 42-9-6 and 930-11) have stepped forward to oppose this lawsuit.
State

v.

Lead

(describing
Attorney

Indus.

the

General

Ass'n,

“broad

951

powers

“pursuant

to

A.2d

and
the

428,

473

See also

(R.I.

responsibilities”
Rhode

Island

2008)

of

the

Constitution,

several Rhode Island statutes, and the common law”).
Summary

judgment

is

proper

where

“there

is

no

genuine

dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to

2

judgment as a matter of law.”
parties

recognize

that

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

United

States

Supreme

Here, all

Court

dictates that Plaintiff’s motion should be granted.

precedent

McIntyre v.

Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334 (1995).

In McIntyre, the

Supreme

law,

Court

prohibited
(“Under

our

invalidated

anonymous

a

similar

political

Constitution,

Ohio

pamphleteering.

anonymous

which
Id.

pamphleteering

is

had

at

357

not

a

pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of
advocacy and of dissent.

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny

of the majority.” (citations omitted)).
As noted above, none of the Defendants have opposed this
motion, and for good reason.

Instead, the Attorney General of

Rhode Island filed a response indicating that his office was
unable to distinguish McIntyre from the facts presented here. 1
Quoting McIntyre, the Attorney General noted that R.I. Gen. Laws
§ 17-23-2 “is a regulation of pure speech.”
hard

to

imagine

what

the

Rhode

1

Island

Id. at 345.

General

It is

Assembly

was

The Rhode Island Attorney General correctly observed that
he may not stipulate to the unconstitutionality of a statute.
Nat'l Revenue Corp. v. Violet, 807 F.2d 285, 288 (1st Cir. 1986)
(“For an attorney general to stipulate that an act of the
legislature is unconstitutional is a clear confusion of the
three branches of government; it is the judicial branch, not the
executive, that may reject legislation. This is not to say that
at a full-dress review an attorney general may not inform the
court that, in his opinion, a statute is flawed . . . but this
would be in the context that the court was to make the final,
considered ruling.” (citations omitted)).

3

thinking

when

it

passed

this

law

90

years

ago,

or

when

it

amended it 40 years ago, but that matters little at this point;
the Court agrees with the Plaintiff and Attorney General and
finds that the statute must be invalidated as a violation of the
First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
For

the

reasons

stated

above,

Summary Judgment is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

William E. Smith
Chief Judge
Date: October 7, 2014

4

Plaintiff’s

Motion

for