Opinion ID: 1435629
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: .Constitutionality of the AEPA

Text: Defendants argue that the AEPA violates the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment because the statute does not clearly define prohibited conduct. Specifically, Defendants argue that the terms economic damage and physical disruption are not clearly defined. As a result, Defendants argue that the statute has a chilling effect on speech because protestors will refrain from all speech, even protected speech, due to the ambiguity of what the statute proscribes. In addition, Defendants argue that the vague nature of the statute allows prosecutors to determine what conduct is covered by the statute, inevitably permitting prosecutorial decisions based on content. Defendants primarily argue that the goal of their political speech was to apply pressure to Huntingdon directly, as well as indirectly, by targeting associated companies, to force Huntingdon to change its practices. Defendants contend that this is an accepted and legal form of political protest protected by the First Amendment, and that the AEPA criminalizes protected behavior by proscribing physical disruptions with the intent to cause economic damage. The government counters that the AEPA excepts lawful disruptions, therefore excluding all protected activity. A statute is void on vagueness grounds if it: (1) `fails to provide people of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it prohibits'; or (2) `authorizes or even encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.' United States v. Stevens, 533 F.3d 218, 249 (3d Cir.2008) (quoting Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 732, 120 S.Ct. 2480, 147 L.Ed.2d 597 (2000)). The inquiry is undertaken on a case-by-case basis, and a reviewing court must determine whether the statute is vague as-applied to the affected party. San Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 961 F.2d 1125, 1136 (3d Cir. 1992). In the criminal context, the Supreme Court has held that since vagueness attacks are based on lack of notice, `they may be overcome in any specific case where reasonable persons would know their conduct puts [them] at risk' of punishment under the statute. Id. (quoting Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988) (alteration in original)). Therefore, for a criminal statute to be constitutional, criminal statutes need only give `fair warning' that certain conduct is prohibited. Id. (quoting Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 110, 92 S.Ct. 1953, 32 L.Ed.2d 584 (1972)). Simply because a criminal statute could have been written more precisely does not mean the statute as written is unconstitutionally vague. Id. (citing United States v. Powell, 423 U.S. 87, 94, 96 S.Ct. 316, 46 L.Ed.2d 228 (1975)). In addition, the Supreme Court has held that scienter requirements in criminal statutes alleviate vagueness concerns, because a mens rea element makes it less likely that a defendant will be convicted for an action that he or she committed by mistake. See, e.g., Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 149, 127 S.Ct. 1610, 167 L.Ed.2d 480 (2007). Furthermore, facial challenges to statutes, including challenges based on vagueness, are disfavored. Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 1191, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008). The Court noted that facial challenges ... run contrary to the fundamental principle of judicial restraint that courts should neither anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it nor formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The AEPA proscribes the use of an instrument of interstate commerce with the  intent [to] damage [or] cause [] the loss of any property (including animals or records) used by the animal enterprise. ... 18 U.S.C. § 43(a) (2002) (emphasis added). The definitions section of the AEPA states that `physical disruption' does not include any lawful disruption that results from lawful public, governmental, or animal enterprise employee reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise. 18 U.S.C. § 43(d)(2) (2002) (emphasis added). The AEPA also defines economic damage as the replacement costs of lost or damaged property or records, the costs of repeating an interrupted or invalidated experiment, or the loss of profits. ... 18 U.S.C. § 43(d)(3) (2002). We do not agree with Defendants that the AEPA is void for vagueness. First, the term physical disruption has a well-understood, common definition. Defendants argue that the term physical disruption could be read to proscribe legal protest activity, such as a letter-writing campaign, because that could be interpreted as an intent to cause a physical disruption resulting in economic loss to the targeted enterprise. However, the statute provides an exception that exempts legal protest activity from proscribed conduct. In this case, Defendants engaged in various direct action campaigns, which even SHAC's website concedes constitute illegal activity. Therefore, Defendants cannot argue that the statute was vague. The record is rife with evidence that Defendants were on notice that their activities put them at risk for prosecution, including the extensive use of various encryption devices and programs used to erase incriminating data from their computer hard drives. Because Defendants' conduct was clearly within the heartland of the statute, speculation as to the hypothetical ways that the AEPA could be unconstitutionally vague would require us to formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts before us. Furthermore, Defendants were charged with intending to cause physical disruption to the functioning of an animal enterprise and to cause economic damages exceeding $10,000. See 18 U.S.C. § 43(b)(2) (2002). The scienter requirement means that the government must present the trier of fact with evidence that establishes that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused had the requisite intent to disrupt the functioning of an animal enterprise. As the Supreme Court has stated, the inclusion of the scienter requirement in the statute alleviates vagueness concerns. See Carhart, 550 U.S. at 149, 127 S.Ct. 1610.
Defendants next argue that we should reverse their convictions for conspiracy to violate the AEPA because the statute is unconstitutional as-applied to them. Specifically, Defendants argue that their actions constituted political speech, and that the SHAC website neither incited violence nor constituted a true threat. Moreover, Defendants argue that their protected speech cannot be converted into unprotected speech by the independent action of others who engaged in illegal conduct. The government contends that the conduct underlying Defendants' convictions is not protected by the First Amendment because, through the SHAC website, Defendants knowingly and purposefully adopted illegal means, including threats of violence and destruction of property, to achieve their political goals. More specifically, the government argues that the individual Defendants, via the SHAC website and their individual actions, promoted and coordinated both lawful and unlawful acts against Huntingdon and associated companies. The unlawful activity was comprised of direct action, which included electronic civil disobedience (e.g., sending black faxes, crashing websites); providing the personal information of Huntingdon employees and companies associated with Huntingdon for the purpose of encouraging harassment, intimidation, and threats; encouraging animal liberation; and vandalizing private property. The government also argues that the individual Defendants personally participated in illegal protest activity. We must first decide whether the content on the SHAC website, the cornerstone of the government's case, is protected by the First Amendment. If so, the AEPA's criminalization of the speech on and through the website is unconstitutional. All parties agree that the postings on the website speak to an issue of political, moral, and ethical importance in today's societythe humane treatment of animals. Therefore, the issues here fit squarely within the rubric of the First Amendment because they contribute to the marketplace of ideas, as well as educate and urge others to action. Moreover, the speech at issue is speech that many find offensive and uncomfortable, which is precisely the type of speech that requires First Amendment protection. See, e.g., Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949) (noting that speech best serve[s] its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest... and stirs people to anger). However, provocative political speech can run afoul of the First Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment do[es] not permit [the government] to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Id. at 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827. The Court elaborated by stating, the mere abstract teaching... of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action. Id. at 448, 89 S.Ct. 1827 (quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original); see also United States v. Bell, 414 F.3d 474, 483 n. 9 (3d Cir.2005) (Under Brandenburg, only speech inciting imminent lawless action may be restricted. (emphasis omitted)). Therefore, for the speech at issue in this case to fall outside the purview of the First Amendment, this Court must determine that the speech (1) invited imminent lawlessness and (2) that the imminent lawlessness was likely to occur. [8] However, while advocating violence that is not imminent and unlikely to occur is protected, speech that constitutes a true threat is not. Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 708, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969). In Watts, the Supreme Court distinguished a true threat from political hyperbole, explaining that the latter is protected speech, while the former is not. In deciding whether speech constitutes a true threat, a court should consider the totality of the circumstances and not just the words in isolation, whether the threat is conditional, and the reaction of the listeners. Id. (noting that the defendant's words, taken in context, were merely a crude and offensive method of making a political statement and did not constitute a true threat). In this case, the record includes hundreds of pages of website printouts that depict screen shots of the SHAC website and other websites affiliated with SHAC or administered by SHAC's agents. These pages demonstrate several types of conduct which the government alleges violated the AEPA. We can generally classify the conduct at issue as follows: news  like postings, allegedly from anonymous sources, that report on demonstrations after the demonstrations occurred; posts that listed the names, addresses and phone numbers of Huntingdon employees and the employees of associated companies; posts that coordinated physical demonstrations, including home demonstrations; posts coordinating electronic civil disobedience with the goal of flooding the Huntingdon servers, fax machines and phones, as well as those of companies affiliated with Huntingdon, and providing a link to software that enables a user to participate; and a post that included a reprint of a list of Top Twenty Terror Tactics that includes illegal conduct. We emphasize that much of the speech on the website does not run afoul of the Brandenburg standard. Coordinating demonstrations at the homes of Huntingdon employees, under the parameters set forth in injunctions, is not unlawful. [9] And merely posting information on unlawful acts that have already occurred, in the past, does not incite future, imminent unlawful conduct. Moreover, the publication of the Top Twenty Terror Tactics, without more, is also protected, because although it lists illegal conduct, there is no suggestion that SHAC planned to imminently implement these tactics. [10] However, we find that the posts that coordinate electronic civil disobedience and disseminate the personal information of individuals employed by Huntingdon and affiliated companies are more problematic. Electronic civil disobedience is unlawful, as SHAC acknowledged on its website. When SHAC's website included links to the tools necessary to carry out virtual sit-ins, those posts were clearly intended to incite imminent, lawless conduct that was likely to occur. SHAC sometimes posted ongoing updates as virtual sit-ins progressed, noting that their efforts were having the desired effect because the Huntingdon servers were slowing down. As described above, an October 26, 2003, e-mail titled Electronic Civil Disobedience, urged SHAC supporters to participate in electronic civil disobedience at a specified time. This message encouraged and compelled an imminent, unlawful act that was not only likely to occur, but provided the schedule by which the unlawful act was to occur. This type of communication is not protected speech under the Brandenburg standard. With regard to the individual Defendants in this case, they attribute the illegal activity of the Huntingdon protestors to anonymous activists or unaffiliated organizations, and now argue that they cannot be held responsible for the illegal acts of others. However, there was ample evidence at trial to demonstrate that Kjonaas, Gazzola, Conroy, Stepanian, Harper and Fullmer coordinated and controlled SHAC's activities, both legal and illegal. Direct action, electronic civil disobedience, intimidation and harassment were part and parcel of SHAC's overall campaign, and these individual Defendants employed those tactics because they were effective. The record also supports a jury inference that these individual Defendants personally participated in illegal protests, in addition to orchestrating the illegal acts of others. They personally took credit for the success of the direct action campaigns as companies discontinued their business dealings with Huntingdon, one by one. Kjonaas and Gazzola, in particular, worked the phones at SHAC headquarters, confirming that various companies had severed ties with Huntingdon. As soon as Kjonaas or Gazzola received written confirmation, the protests stopped-strongly suggesting that they, on behalf of SHAC, had substantial control over the entire campaign. In addition, the individual Defendants held up the successes of the illegal campaigns as an example to other companies they targeted, in furtherance of their conspiracy to violate the AEPA. Further, other conduct constituted true threats, which also removes Defendants' speech from the realm of First Amendment protection. In particular, Defendants used past incidents to instill fear in future targets. For example, SHAC displayed placards with photos of Brian Cass after his beating, with his injuries highlighted in red, at protests. Indeed, they attributed the quick exit of some targets, such as Deloitte and Touche, to the past experiences of employees at companies like Stephens and Marsh. In this regard, their actions meet the standard of a true threat as articulated in Watts, because viewed in context, the speeches, protests, and web postings, were all tools to further their effort. Moreover, given the success of the campaign in the past, including the destruction of private property and the telecommunication attacks on various companies, the implied threats were not conditional, and this speech rightly instilled fear in the listeners. We therefore conclude that some of the speech on SHAC's website, viewed in context, is not protected by the First Amendment. Likewise, we find that any Defendant who created or disseminated that speech, or who personally participated in illegal activity, is likewise not protected by the First Amendment. We discuss the individual Defendants below.
As discussed above, Kjonaas delivered a speech at the workshop in Little Rock, in which he praised the use of violent techniques. While distasteful, we find that this is protected speech. There is no evidence that the speech was intended to incite anyone to participate in imminent and likely unlawful action. However, when we view the speech in context alongside the overwhelming evidence that Kjonaas was deeply involved in the coordination and execution of illegal protest activitythe speech informs us of his state of mind. We agree with the District Court's conclusion that Kjonaas's conviction for conspiring to violate the AEPA is not prohibited by the First Amendment. The record contains more instances of Kjonaas's involvement in and coordination of illegal activity than we could possibly recount here. Suffice it to say that, as detailed above, Kjonaas's metaphorical fingerprints were all over several of SHAC's illegal activities. Perhaps the clearest example is his involvement with the campaign against Stephens. Prior to Kjonaas's meeting with the Stephens representative to discuss Stephens's investment with Huntingdon, the Stephens representative asked Kjonaas to shut down www.stephenskills.com, a website that encouraged electronic civil disobedience. Within days, the website was down. After the meeting, during which Stephens refused to stop dealing with Huntingdon, an illegal direct action campaign against Stephens escalated. It is equally telling that Kjonaas's telephone records indicate that he called the person responsible for the Chiron bombing in Seattle hours after it happened. These are only representative samples of Kjonaas's direction and coordination of the direct action campaign, but viewed in context, we do not find that his First Amendment rights have been violated.
One of the more incriminating pieces of evidence against Gazzola was her participation in the demonstration at the home of Robert Harper. The government showed a video at trial, in which Gazzola can be heard threatening to burn down Harper's house and warning him that the police cannot protect him. Under the Watts framework, this act, viewed in context with Gazzola's other conduct, constitutes a true threat and is sufficient to remove her protest activity from First Amendment protection. [11] We find it hard to see how threatening to burn down someone's house is political hyperbole such that it might be protected by the First Amendment in the first place. However, even assuming that it has some underlying political value, viewed in the totality of the circumstances, this constituted a true threat. When this protest took place, Robert Harper and his family had been a target of the campaign for a few weeks. Robert Harper was keenly aware of what was happening, and what had happened, to others who had been targeted during the campaign to close Huntingdon, including the physical assault on Brian Cass. He lived in fear that something similar would happen to his family, and from the record, his fear of the protestors acting on their threats was reasonable. Gazzola could reasonably foresee that Harper would interpret her words as a serious expression of intent to harm Robert Harper and his family. Even assuming Gazzola had not made these threats at the Harper demonstration, the record establishes that Gazzola, like Kjonaas, was instrumental in the planning and execution of SHAC's illegal activities. She repeatedly employed illegal tactics as one of the strategies used to further SHAC's overall goal of closing Huntingdon.
Conroy, who designed and maintained the websites on behalf of SHAC, has the most obvious connection to the postings regarding electronic civil disobedience, which instigated imminent, illegal activity, because he was responsible for posting the content on the Internet. Therefore, given his level of control over the website, our conclusion that SHAC's website coordinated electronic civil disobedience alone requires the conclusion that Conroy's actions in this regard do not warrant First Amendment protection. [12]
In a recorded telephone conversation with Gazzola, Stepanian described a protest he coordinated inside the New York offices of Deloitte and Touche, Huntingdon's auditor. After security refused to admit Stepanian into the building, he followed a delivery person inside, and spoke to the office manager. The office manager ejected Stepanian from the building, at which time other protestors threw paper and plastered the inside of the building with stickers. Although Stepanian clearly accepted responsibility for this action in the phone call with Gazzola, the protest was nonetheless attributed to New York activists. Stepanian himself provided strong circumstantial evidence of his planning and execution of illegal protest activity in a phone conversation with Kjonaas. When Kjonaas asked Stepanian what his plans were, Stepanian replied that he could not share the information over the phone, presumably for fear that the phone was wiretapped.
Fullmer, operating under an e-mail address that the government identified as belonging to him, coordinated illegal protest activity on behalf of SHAC via a Yahoo message board. This activity included inciting the readers to participate in Black Fax Mondays against Stephens, Inc. and Bank of New York. Like Conroy, Fullmer's speech incited others to commit illegal acts at a designated time and place, which meets the Brandenburg standard, removing it from the realm of protected speech.
The government primarily argues that Harper coordinated a SHAC campaign in Seattle, and that he gave speeches advocating and explaining electronic civil disobedience. During its summation, the government emphasized Harper's coordination of speeches in Seattle, his longstanding friendships with some of his co-Defendants, and his visit to a Deloitte and Touche office in Seattle during which it appears he did nothing illegal. Harper also gave speeches, including one in which he explained how to send black faxes and wrote an editorial in which he endorsed militant action. He called Kjonaas to express his surprise and pleasure with SHAC's successes, and he e-mailed Kjonaas asking for speakers to travel to Seattle to speak on behalf of the organization and the movement. Harper's personal conduct does not cross the line of illegality; to punish him simply on the basis of his political speeches would run afoul of the constitution. However, his conduct, as discussed infra, does provide circumstantial evidence from which a jury could have reasonably inferred that Harper was involved in a conspiracy to violate the AEPA. See Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 489, 113 S.Ct. 2194, 124 L.Ed.2d 436 (1993) (The First Amendment ... does not prohibit the evidentiary use of speech to establish the elements of a crime or to prove motive or intent.) Accordingly, the application of AEPA to him is not unconstitutional.
We hold that the AEPA is not void for vagueness and is not unconstitutional as-applied to all Defendants.