Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 61.0

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

17 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

text or history of the First Amendment.”  Sineneng-Smith, 
590  U. S.,  at  384  (opinion  of  THOMAS,  J.).  Instead,  the 
Court  has  supplied  only  “policy  considerations  and  value 
judgments.”  Ibid. 

The overbreadth and vagueness doctrines’ method of fa-
cial  invalidation  eventually  spread  to  other  areas  of  law,
setting in motion our modern facial challenge doctrine.  For 
several decades after Thornhill, the Court continued to re-
sist  the  broad  use  of  facial  challenges.    For  example,  in 
Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601 (1973), the Court em-
phasized that “[c]onstitutional judgments, as Mr. Chief Jus-
tice Marshall recognized, are justified only out of the neces-
sity of adjudicating rights in particular cases between the 
litigants  brought  before  the  Court.”  Id.,  at  611.    In  that 
vein, the Court characterized “facial overbreadth adjudica-
tion [as] an exception to our traditional rules of practice.” 
Id.,  at  615.   But,  the  Court  eventually  entertained  facial
challenges more broadly where a plaintiff established that 
“no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would 
be valid.” 6  Salerno, 481 U. S., at 745.  Just as with the over-
breadth  doctrine,  the  Court  has  yet  to  explain  how  facial 
challenges  are  consistent  with  the  Constitution’s  text  or 
history.

Given how our facial challenge doctrine seems to have de-
veloped—with one doctrinal mistake leading to another—it 
is no wonder that facial challenges create a host of consti-
tutional and practical issues.  See supra, at 6–13.  Rather 
than perpetuate our mistakes, the Court should end them.
“No principle is more fundamental to the judiciary’s proper
role  in  our  system  of  government  than  the  constitutional 

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6 Some Members of the Court subsequently sought to apply a more le-
nient standard to all facial challenges.  See Washington State Grange v. 
Washington  State  Republican  Party,  552  U. S.  442,  449  (2008)  (noting
that  “some  Members  of  the  Court  have  criticized  the  Salerno formula-
tion”); United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 472 (2010) (reserving the 
question of which standard applies to “a typical facial attack”).