Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-302_e29g.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

9 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

infirmities.   In  Chaplinsky  v.  New  Hampshire,  315  U. S. 
568  (1942),  for  example,  the  Court  accepted  the  New 
Hampshire  Supreme  Court’s  narrowing  of  a  state  statute
covering  “ ‘any  offensive,  derisive  or  annoying  word,’ ”  id., 
at  569,  to  reach  only  those  words  that  would  strike  the 
average person as being “plainly likely to cause a breach of 
the  peace  by  the  addressee,”  id.,  at  573. 
“[T]hus  con-
strued,” this Court decided, the statute did not violate the 
right  to  free  speech.  Ibid.;  see  also  Boos  v.  Barry,  485 
U. S.  312,  329–330  (1988)  (accepting  Court  of  Appeals’ 
construction  of  a  statute  making  it  illegal  “ ‘to  congregate 
within  500  feet  of  any  [embassy,  legation,  or  consulate] 
and  refuse  to  disperse  after  having  been  ordered  so  to  do
by  the  police’ ”  to  reach  only  “congregations  that  are  di-
rected  at  an  embassy”  and  “ ‘only  when  the  police  reason- 
ably  believe  that  a  threat  to  the  security  or  peace  of  the 
embassy is present’ ”).

In  Frisby  v.  Schultz,  487  U. S.  474  (1988),  the  Court 
addressed  an  ordinance  that  prohibited  “ ‘picketing  before 
or about the residence or dwelling of any individual.’ ”  Id., 
at  477.  The  Court  construed  the  statute  to  reach  only 
“focused picketing taking place solely in front of a particu-
lar residence.”  Id., at 483.  Given that “narrow scope,” the
statute  was  not  facially  unconstitutional.    Id.,  at  488;  see 
also  In re  Brunetti,  877  F. 3d  1330,  1358  (CA  Fed.  2017) 
(Dyk,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment)  (noting  this  Court’s 
narrow constructions of federal obscenity statutes). 

Taking  the  word  “scandalous”  to  target  only  those
marks that employ an offensive mode of expression follows 
a  similar  practice.  To  be  sure,  the  word  could  be  read 
more  broadly,  thereby  sweeping  unconstitutionally  into
viewpoint  discrimination.  And  imposing  a  limiting  con-
struction  is,  of  course,  “not  a  license  for  the  judiciary  to 
rewrite  language  enacted  by  the  legislature.”  United 
States  v.  Albertini,  472  U. S.  675,  680  (1985).   But  where 
the  Court  can  reasonably  read  a  statute  like  this  one  to