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Page Number: 14

10 

UNITED STATES v. STEVENS 

Opinion of the Court 

To succeed in a typical facial attack, Stevens would have
to  establish  “that  no  set  of  circumstances  exists  under 
which [§48] would be valid,” United States v. Salerno, 481 
U. S. 739, 745 (1987), or that the statute lacks any “plainly 
legitimate  sweep,”  Washington  v.  Glucksberg,  521  U. S. 
702,  740,  n. 7  (1997)  (STEVENS,  J.,  concurring  in  judg-
ments)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    Which  stan-
dard  applies  in  a  typical  case  is  a  matter  of  dispute  that
we  need  not  and  do  not  address,  and  neither  Salerno  nor 
Glucksberg is a speech case.  Here the Government asserts 
that  Stevens  cannot  prevail  because  §48  is  plainly  legiti-
mate as applied to crush videos and animal fighting depic-
tions.  Deciding  this  case  through  a  traditional  facial 
analysis  would  require  us  to  resolve  whether  these  appli-
cations of §48 are in fact consistent with the Constitution. 
In  the  First  Amendment  context,  however,  this  Court 
recognizes  “a  second  type  of  facial  challenge,”  whereby  a 
law  may  be  invalidated  as  overbroad  if  “a  substantial
number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in
relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.”  Wash-
ington  State  Grange  v.  Washington  State  Republican 
Party,  552  U. S.  442,  449,  n. 6  (2008)  (internal  quotation
marks  omitted).    Stevens  argues  that  §48  applies  to  com-
mon depictions of ordinary and lawful activities, and that 
these  depictions  constitute  the  vast  majority  of  materials
subject  to  the  statute.  Brief  for  Respondent  22–25.    The 
Government makes no effort to defend such a broad ban as 
constitutional.  Instead,  the  Government’s  entire  defense 
of  §48  rests  on  interpreting  the  statute  as  narrowly  lim-
ited  to  specific  types  of  “extreme”  material.    Brief  for 
United States 8.  As the parties have presented the issue,
therefore,  the  constitutionality  of  §48  hinges  on  how 
broadly it is construed.  It is to that question that we now 
turn.3 

—————— 

3 The  dissent  contends  that  because  there  has  not  been  a  ruling  on