Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 51

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

7 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

Facial  challenges  ask  courts  to  issue  holdings  that  are
rarely, if ever, required to resolve a single case or contro-
versy.  The only way a plaintiff gets into a federal court is 
by showing that he “personally has suffered some actual or 
threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal con-
duct  of  the  defendant.”  Blum  v.  Yaretsky,  457  U. S.  991, 
999  (1982)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    And,  the 
only remedy a plaintiff should leave a federal court with is
one “limited to the inadequacy that produced the injury in 
fact that the plaintiff has established.”  Lewis v. Casey, 518 
U. S.  343,  357  (1996).    Accordingly,  once  a  court  decides 
whether a statute can be validly enforced against the plain-
tiff who challenges it, that case or controversy is resolved. 
Either the court remedies the plaintiff ’s injury, or it deter-
mines  that  the  statute  may  be  constitutionally  applied  to
the plaintiff.

Proceeding to decide the merits of possible constitutional 
challenges that could be brought by other plaintiffs is not 
necessary to resolve that case.  Instead, any holding with
respect to potential future plaintiffs would be “no more than
an advisory opinion—which a federal court should never is-
sue at all, and especially should not issue with regard to a
constitutional question, as to which we seek to avoid even 
nonadvisory opinions.”  Chicago v. Morales, 527 U. S. 41, 77 
(1999) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (citation omitted). 

Unsurprisingly,  facial  challenges  are  at  odds  with  doc-
trines enforcing the case-or-controversy requirement.  Pur-
suant  to  standing  doctrine,  for  example,  a  plaintiff  can
maintain a suit in a federal court—and thus invoke judicial
power—only if he has suffered an “injury” with a “traceable 
connection” to the “complained-of conduct of the defendant.” 
Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 103.  Facial challenges significantly 
relax those rules.  Start with the injury requirement.  Fa-
cial challenges allow a plaintiff to challenge applications of 
a statute that have not injured him.  But see Acheson Ho-