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City of Dallas v. Stanglin/Concurrence Stevens

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647420City of Dallas v. Stanglin — Opinion of the CourtJohn Paul Stevens
Court Documents
Case Syllabus
Opinion of the Court
Concurring Opinion
Stevens


Justice STEVENS, with whom Justice BLACKMUN joins, concurring in the judgment.

In my opinion the opportunity to make friends and enjoy the company of other people-in a dance hall or elsewhere-is an aspect of liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. For that reason, I believe the critical issue in this case involves substantive due process rather than the First Amendment right of association. Nonetheless, I agree with the Court that the city has adequately justified the ordinance's modest impairment of the liberty of teenagers. Indeed, I suspect that the ordinance actually gives teenagers greater opportunity to associate than they would have if the Class E dance-hall provision were invalidated.[1] I therefore join the Court's judgment.

Notes

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  1. I do not join the Court's assessment of this case under the Equal Protection Clause. Although the equal protection issue received nominal attention in the trial court, see Pet. for Cert. C-1 to C-7, it was neither reviewed by the Texas Court of Appeals nor briefed before us. See 744 S.W.2d 165 (1987); Pet. for Cert. 3; Brief for Petitioners 4.


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

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