Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-179_o75q.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

17 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

tested only by those hardy enough to risk criminal prosecu-
tion  to  determine  the  proper  scope  of  regulation.”    Id.,  at 
487.   We  thus  allow  defendants  whose  speech is constitu-
tionally proscribed by a statute (like Hansen) to argue that 
the statute is nevertheless facially invalid under the First 
Amendment on the grounds that “a substantial number of 
its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to 
the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.”  Stevens, 559 U. S., 
at 473 (internal quotation marks omitted).  By permitting 
this kind of challenge, the Court has “avoided making vin-
dication of freedom of expression await the outcome of pro-
tracted litigation.”  Dombrowski, 380 U. S., at 487. 
  If this Court is willing to redline Congress’s work to save 
it  from  unconstitutionality,  it  “sharply  diminish[es]  Con-
gress’s incentive to draft a narrowly tailored law in the first 
place,” Stevens, 559 U. S., at 481 (internal quotation marks 
omitted), which runs directly counter to overbreadth’s goal 
of  limiting  criminal  laws  that  chill  constitutionally  pro-
tected speech.  Thus, in the particular context of an over-
breadth  challenge,  countervailing  constitutional  con-
cerns—namely, that constitutionally protected speech will 
be  chilled—must  be  considered  alongside  the  values  that 
underpin our ordinary canon of constitutional avoidance. 
  Heavy  reliance  on  constitutional  avoidance  where  stat-
utes would otherwise be facially overbroad also means that 
the broad language in the particular statute remains on the 
books—as compared to the alternative world, in which the 
Court  holds  the  statute  unconstitutional  as  facially  over-
broad and thereby prompts the enactment of a narrower re-
placement.    Ordinary  people  confronted  with  the  encour-
agement  provision,  for  instance,  will  see  only  its  broad, 
speech-chilling  language.    Even  if  they  do  consult  this 
Court’s decision, and do recognize that it substantially nar-
rows the statute’s scope, the Court’s decision leaves many 
things about future potential prosecutions up in the air.