Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 60.0

16 

MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

utes as unconstitutionally vague is consistent with the orig-
inal  meaning  of  the  Due  Process  Clause.”  Dimaya,  584 
U. S.,  at  206  (opinion  of  THOMAS,  J.);  see  Johnson,  576 
U. S., at 622 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).

The  vagueness  doctrine  was  the  direct  ancestor  of  one 
subset  of  modern  facial  challenges,  the  overbreadth  doc-
trine.  See United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S. 371, 
385 (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (noting that the over-
breadth  doctrine  “developed  as  a  result  of  the  vagueness 
doctrine’s application in the First Amendment context”).  In 
Thornhill  v.  Alabama,  310  U. S.  88  (1940),  the  Court 
deemed an antipicketing statute “invalid on its face” due to 
its “sweeping proscription of freedom of discussion.”  Id., at 
101–106.  The Thornhill Court did so “[w]ithout considering 
whether  the  defendant’s  actual  conduct  was  entitled  to 
First Amendment protection,” instead invalidating the law 
because it “ ‘swept within its ambit . . . activities that in or-
dinary  circumstances  constitute  an  exercise  of  freedom  of 
speech or of the press.’ ”  Sineneng-Smith, 590 U. S., at 383 
(opinion of THOMAS, J.) (quoting Thornhill, 310 U. S., at 97; 
alteration omitted). 

Thornhill’s approach quickly gained traction in the First
Amendment context.  In the years to follow, the Court “in-
voked [its] rationale to facially invalidate a wide range of
laws” concerning First Amendment rights—a practice that
became  known  as  the  overbreadth  doctrine.  Sineneng-
Smith, 590 U. S., at 383.  Under that doctrine, a court can 
invalidate a statute if it “prohibits a substantial amount of 
protected  speech,”  “relative  to  the  statute’s  plainly  legiti-
mate sweep.”5  Williams, 553 U. S., at 292.  The Court has 
never attempted to ground the overbreadth doctrine “in the 

—————— 

5 Although the Court’s precedents describe an unconstitutionally over-
broad statute as facially “invalid,” “federal courts have no authority to 
erase a duly enacted law from the statute books.”  J. Mitchell, The Writ-
of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933, 936 (2018); see Sineneng-Smith, 
590 U. S., at 387 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).