Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1194_08l1.pdf
Page Number: 12

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

IV 

The  primary  response  from  the  State  is  that  the  law 
must  be  this  broad  to  serve  its  preventative  purpose  of 
keeping  convicted  sex  offenders  away  from  vulnerable 
victims.  The  State  has  not,  however,  met  its  burden  to 
show that this sweeping law is necessary or legitimate to
serve  that  purpose.    See  McCullen,  573  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip 
op., at 28).

It is instructive that no case or holding of this Court has
approved  of  a  statute  as  broad  in  its  reach.  The  closest 
analogy that the State has cited is Burson v. Freeman, 504 
U. S. 191 (1992).  There, the Court upheld a prohibition on
campaigning within 100 feet of a polling place.  That case 
gives little or no support to the State.  The law in Burson 
was a limited restriction that, in a context consistent with 
constitutional  tradition,  was  enacted  to  protect  another
fundamental  right—the  right  to  vote.    The  restrictions 
there  were  far  less  onerous  than  those  the  State  seeks  to 
impose here.  The law in Burson meant only that the last
few  seconds  before  voters  entered  a  polling  place  were 
“their  own,  as  free  from  interference  as  possible.”    Id.,  at 
210.  And the Court noted that, were the buffer zone larger
than  100  feet,  it  “could  effectively  become  an  impermissi-
ble burden” under the First Amendment.  Ibid. 

The  better  analogy  to  this  case  is  Board  of  Airport 
Comm’rs  of  Los  Angeles  v.  Jews  for  Jesus,  Inc.,  482  U. S. 
569  (1987),  where  the  Court  struck  down  an  ordinance 
prohibiting any “First Amendment activities” at Los Ange-
les International Airport because the ordinance covered all
manner  of  protected,  nondisruptive  behavior  including 
“talking and reading, or the wearing of campaign buttons 
or symbolic clothing,”  id., at 571, 575.  If a law prohibiting
“all protected expression” at a single airport is not consti-
tutional,  id.,  at  574  (emphasis  deleted),  it  follows  with
even greater force that the State may not enact this com-
plete  bar  to  the  exercise  of  First  Amendment  rights  on