Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1194_08l1.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

2 

PACKINGHAM v. NORTH CAROLINA 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

lems with their peers.  I am troubled by the implications of 
the Court’s unnecessary rhetoric. 

I 

A 

The North Carolina law at issue makes it a felony for a 
registered  sex  offender  “to  access  a  commercial  social 
networking  Web  site  where  the  sex  offender  knows  that 
the  site  permits  minor  children  to  become  members  or  to 
create or maintain personal Web pages.”  N. C. Gen. Stat. 
Ann. §§14–202.5(a), (e) (2015).  And as I will explain, the
statutory  definition  of  a  “commercial  social  networking 
Web site” is very broad.

Packingham and the State debate the analytical frame-
work  that  governs  this  case.  The  State  argues  that  the
law in question is content neutral and merely regulates a
“place”  (i.e.,  the  internet)  where  convicted  sex  offenders
may  wish  to  engage  in  speech.  See  Brief  for  Respondent
20–25.  Therefore,  according  to  the  State,  the  standard 
applicable  to  “time,  place,  or  manner”  restrictions  should
apply.  See  Ward  v.  Rock  Against  Racism,  491  U. S.  781, 
791  (1989).    Packingham  responds  that  the  challenged 
statute  is  “unlike  any  law  this  Court  has  considered  as  a
time, place, or manner restriction,” Brief for Petitioner 37, 
and  he  advocates  a  more  demanding  standard  of  review, 
id., at 37–39. 

Like  the  Court,  I  find  it  unnecessary  to  resolve  this
dispute  because  the  law  in  question  cannot  satisfy  the 
standard applicable to a content-neutral regulation of the 
place where speech may occur. 

B 
A  content-neutral  “time,  place,  or  manner”  restriction
must  serve  a  “legitimate”  government  interest,  Ward, 
supra, at 798, and the North Carolina law easily satisfies 
this  requirement.  As  we  have  frequently  noted,  “[t]he