Opinion ID: 580788
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Unconstitutional Overbreadth

Text: 37 Adult Video argues that RICO, as applied to obscenity, is subject to facial invalidation for overbreadth. Specifically, Adult Video contends that the penalty provisions impermissibly stifle constitutionally-protected sexually explicit speech. Enforcement of RICO in the obscenity context, Adult Video continues, can never legitimately occur because any consequent forfeiture would represent an unconstitutional prior restraint. 38 The overbreadth doctrine constitutes an exception to the general rule requiring the constitutionality of a statute to be tested against the conduct of the party before the court. It permits a party to challenge a law, not on the ground that the statute is unconstitutional as enforced against it, but rather on the ground that the statute's application to third persons not before the court violates the First Amendment. Members of the City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 798-99 & n. 17, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 2125 & n. 17, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984); see also New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 768-69, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 3360-61, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982). 39 [T]he transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with the requisite narrow specificity. This is deemed necessary because persons whose expression is constitutionally protected may well refrain from exercising their rights for fear of criminal sanctions provided by a statute susceptible of application to protected expression. 40 Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 799 n. 17, 104 S.Ct. at 2125 n. 17 (quotations and citations omitted). In order to prevail, the plaintiff must demonstrate substantial overbreadth,  'judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.'  Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 799-800, 104 S.Ct. at 2126 (quoting Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 615, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2918, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973)). 41 In light of these precedents, we reject Adult Video's overbreadth challenge. Adult Video's argument is little more than an amalgam of its unconstitutional prior restraint and chill arguments. Adult Video has not demonstrated the type of showing necessary to maintain an overbreadth challenge on First Amendment grounds. Adult Video's overbreadth theory simply mirrors the constitutional arguments it makes concerning the RICO obscenity provisions' effects on its own ability to produce, distribute, sell, and consume sexually explicit videotapes. 42 In Taxpayers for Vincent, the Supreme Court rebuffed an overbreadth argument on precisely this ground:This is not ... an appropriate case to entertain a facial challenge based on overbreadth. For we have found nothing in the record to indicate that the ordinance will have any different impact on any third parties' interests in free speech than it has on [plaintiffs]. 43 ... [Plaintiffs] have, in short, failed to identify any significant difference between their claim that the ordinance is invalid on overbreadth grounds and their claim that it is unconstitutional when applied to [them].... [Plaintiffs] have simply failed to demonstrate a realistic danger that the ordinance will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of individuals not before the Court. 44 Id. at 801-02, 104 S.Ct. at 2127. 45