Opinion ID: 794391
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Betancourt's Other Claims

Text: 34 Betancourt's other claims do not require extended discussion. He claims that § 16-122(b) is unconstitutionally over-reaching because it prohibits innocent, unoffending conduct that is beyond the state's police power to regulate (Betancourt brief on appeal at 35), i.e., sitting, lying, or sleeping by homeless persons in parks and other public places, where they are not impinging on the rights of others ( id. at 37). This claim is doubly flawed. First, the Supreme Court ha[s] not recognized an `overbreadth' doctrine outside the limited context of the First Amendment. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987). Because Betancourt has not raised a First Amendment challenge and is `a person to whom a statute may constitutionally be applied,' he `will not be heard to challenge that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to others, in other situations not before the Court.' Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 759, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974) (quoting Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973)). Second, § 16-122(b) by its terms prohibits leaving or constructing in public spaces inanimate objects that are, inter alia, obstructions. That section does not appear to prohibit the conduct—sitting, lying, or sleeping—described by Betancourt. 35 Finally, the district court properly dismissed Betancourt's false arrest claim because the police, having observed him in a cardboard structure large enough to house an adult human being, which he had erected in a public space, had probable cause to arrest him.