Opinions below

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion of the court of appeals (R.26) and the opinion of the district court (R.17-24) are unreported.

JURISDICTION

The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on October 17, 2004. The Court granted petitioner’s timely petition for Writ of Certiorari on December 8, 2004. The Court’s jurisdiction rests on 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On Friday, July 25, 2003, at approximately 9:00 p.m., Petitioners Spencer McNeil (“McNeil”) and Juan Perez (“Perez”), two fifteen-year-olds, arrived at Respondent Amesville Playland (“Playland”), an amusement park and arcade in Amesville, Ames open until 2:00 a.m. on weekends. (R.9-10) With their parents’ permission to stay out past midnight on Friday nights during summer vacation, McNeil and Perez spent approximately three hours on rides and playing in Playland’s arcade. (R.10) At 12:15 a.m., they were approached by Playland’s owner, Stanley Yaznetz (“Yaznetz”), detained for almost an hour, and cited for violating the Ames Juvenile Curfew Act (“Curfew Act”). (R.10)

The Curfew Act

The Ames State Legislature passed the Curfew Act on October 17, 2001, by a five-vote margin in the Senate and a seven-vote margin in the House, and became effective on January 1, 2002. (R.9, 14) The Curfew Act makes it “unlawful for any minor to remain … in any public place or establishment in the State of Ames during curfew hours.” (R.13) The curfew begins at 11:00 p.m. on weeknights and 12:01 a.m. on weekends, and it ends at 5:00 a.m. each day. (R.12) The curfew applies uniformly across Ames’s 276 municipalities but allows that curfew hours may be extended by up to two hours when a locality determines that the curfew’s start time is later than is reasonable. (R.14)

Progressive penalties are imposed on youths and their parents for violations of the curfew, with a $250 fine, a $500 fine, and criminal charges against parents imposed after the first, second and any subsequent offenses, respectively. (R.14) The statute provides affirmative defenses for minors who are accompanied by a parent, who are participating, going to, or returning from designated activities, who are on the sidewalk abutting their own home or that of a neighbor, who are exercising First Amendment rights, or who are engaged in interstate or international travel between locations outside Ames. (R.13-14) Not until a law enforcement officer has asked the minor’s age and reason for being in the prohibited location, and not until the officer “reasonably believes” the curfew has been violated and the minor has no legal defense, can the officer “detain a minor, issue a citation, or take a minor into custody.” (R.14) The Curfew Act also burdens parents and private establishments, making it unlawful for parents to permit minors to violate the curfew and unlawful for establishments to “knowingly allow a minor to enter or remain upon the premises … during curfew hours.” (R.13) Upon probable cause, merchants “may … take reasonable steps to prevent minors from entering or remaining on the premises.” (R.13) Establishments face a $500 fine for each failure to enforce the curfew. (R.14)

Legislative History

The Curfew Act was enacted based on legislative findings that minors are “particularly vulnerable to the threat of injury and the lure of criminal behavior,” that crime involving minors as victims or perpetrators has increased in Ames, and that parents want elected officials to help them control their children. (R.12) The stated intention of the Curfew Act is to protect all its citizens from crime, “with particular emphasis on protecting the health and welfare of children.” (R.12) These legislative findings are based on mixed evidence presented to the Ames Senate Judiciary Committee on September 23, 2001. (See R.28-29) The Ames AARP executive director made anecdotal reference to “[g]angs of adolescents who slouch around street corners,” (R.28), and the Ames City police chief referred to the approximately 20% increase in both violent and property crimes committed by minors and the 32% proportion of crime committed during late night hours – though not necessarily by minors – in his city of over 300,000. (R.28-29, 15) At the same hearing, a children’s advocate noted that almost 60% of crimes against children do not occur during late night hours and that 64% of crimes against children do not occur in public places and a professor of criminology testified that in a study of fifteen other juvenile curfews, a majority did not have a significant impact on the crime rate. (R.28)

The statistical evidence provided by the Ames Attorney General indicates that Ames City, with a population of over 300,000, ranked first out of 276 localities in juvenile arrests in 2000. (R.15) Ames City’s combined violent crime, property crime, drug abuse and weapons arrests of juveniles totaled over 2,000, including 824 for violent crimes. (R.15) For the same period, Amesville ranked 259, with nineteen arrests, two of them for violent crime. (R.15) In a report by the Governor on statewide crime, statistics indicate that, since the enactment of the Curfew Act, juvenile arrests in Ames have decreased in certain categories (property crime arrests reduced from 1344 in 2000 to 825 in 2003), increased in certain categories (drug abuse arrests increased from 815 to 825) and remained the same in others (violent crime arrests moved from 311 to 312). (R.16)

McNeil and Perez’s Detention and Citation

On July 26, at 12:15 a.m., Yaznetz, the owner and operator of Playland, acted to enforce the curfew against McNeil and Perez. (R.10) He approached the youths and asked whether they were under eighteen years old. (R. 10) McNeil and Perez chose not to respond, and Yaznetz instructed them to leave. (R.10) McNeil and Perez indicated that they would like to use the tokens they had already purchased, but Yaznetz, and two Playland employees forced the youths into Yaznetz’s Playland office where Yaznetz called the Amesville police. (R.10) For almost an hour, Yaznetz detained the youths, denying their multiple requests to “call their parents, use the bathroom, and go home.” (R.4) Officer John Garrity, an Amesville police lieutenant, arrived at 1:15 a.m. and Yaznetz delivered the youths into his custody. (R.10) These events followed eight other such incidents involving the detention and delivery of minors to the Amesville police by Playland in the less than two years since enactment of the Curfew Act. (R.4) Garrity issued McNeil and Perez a citation instructing them to appear in Juvenile Court, based on his determination that they were minors within the definition of the Curfew Act. (R.10) The Juvenile Court subsequently fined each youth $250. (R.10)

The Appeal

On March 31, 2004, McNeil and Perez filed suit, through their parents Vanessa McNeil and Jose Perez, in United States District Court for the District of Ames, against Sam Lu, in his official capacity as Chief of Police of Amesville, Sarah Jackson, in her official capacity as Amesly County Prosecutor, and Playland. (R.1) McNeil and Perez sought relief against Lu and Jackson to challenge the constitutionality of the Curfew Act under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and against Playland for damages and other relief appropriate under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of their civil rights under color of state law. (R.1) On July 27, 2004, the District Court granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment, which were affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ames Circuit on October 17, 2004. (R.23-24, 26) On December 8, 2004, the Court granted the petition for Writ of Certiorari to review whether the Curfew Act violates McNeil and Perez’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and whether Playland is a state actor under color of law for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (R.27)