Opinion ID: 772012
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Facial Due Process Challenge

Text: 88 In White, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the defendant's facial challenge to the stalking statute on vagueness grounds. See White, 536 N.W.2d at 884. The district court stated that while a facial attack was clearly available to Petitioner on First Amendment grounds, the issue was less clear whether Petitioner could mount a facial attack on due process grounds. The court decided that, [a]lthough the case law on the question is unsettled, the Court believes that Staley's due process arguments warrant a facial analysis of the statute. See Staley, 108 F. Supp. 2d at 782. The court also concluded that the statute was vague. See id. at 786 n.4. 89 Respondent asserts that the White court's rejection of the defendant's facial due process challenge did not violate clearly established Supreme Court precedent, since at the time of Petitioner's appeal, a facial challenge was not recognized on other than First Amendment grounds. In support, Respondent cites United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987) 23 . In Salerno, the Supreme Court stated that to mount asuccessful facial challenge outside of the First Amendment, a party must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the [statute] would be valid. Id. at 745. See also Morales, 527 U.S. at 77-80 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (noting that other than in the free-speech cases subject to the overbreadth doctrine, facial challenges are not allowed, citing Salerno, discussing precedent) 24 . 90 The plurality in Morales specifically rejected Justice Scalia's argument, however, noting that the Salerno proposition was dictum, and ruled that since the case sub judice came from a state court, and not a federal court, it need not resolve the viability of Salerno's dictum. Morales, 527 U.S. at 55 n.22 25 . The plurality ruled that it did not need to rely on the overbreadth doctrine to entertain a facial challenge, [f]or it is clear that the vagueness of this enactment makes a facial challenge appropriate. Id. at 55; see also id. (When vagueness permeates the text of such a law, it is subject to facial attack.). The plurality opinionfurther remarked that [w]hether or not it would be appropriate for federal courts to apply the Salerno standard in some cases - a proposition which is doubtful - state courts need not apply prudential notions of standing created by this Court. . . . JUSTICE SCALIA'S assumption that state courts must apply the restrictive Salerno test is incorrect as a matter of law. Id. at 55 n.22. 91 Morales was not decided until 1999; Salerno was decided in 1987. The White court, in 1995, and the state appeals panel in this case in 1996, obviously could not have erred, for purposes of § 2254(d)(1), by following Salerno. Moreover, as the district court observed, and the debate between Justice Scalia and the plurality in Morales reveals, there was no clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court in 1996 as to the proposition that a facial attack outside the First Amendment context did not also consider the defendant's conduct 26 . See United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231, 1235 n.3 (11th Cir. 2000) (noting that 'the Salerno rule,' has been subject to a heated debate in the Supreme Court, where it has not been consistently followed); Michael C. Steel, Constitutional Law -- The Vagueness Doctrine: Two-Part Test, or Two Conflicting Tests? City of Chicago v. Morales, 119 S.Ct 1849 (1999), 35 Land & Water L. Rev. 255, 271 (2000) (Salerno's 'no set of circumstances' test, which has been labeled and deemed 'draconian,' cannot be reconciled with thePapachristou, Kolender, and Morales decisions. (footnotes omitted)) 27 . 92 As the district court noted, the Supreme Court has indicated that the absence of an intent requirement is an important consideration when determining whether a statute is unconstitutionally vague. See Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 395 (1979) (This Court has long recognized that the constitutionality of a vague statutory standard isclosely related to whether that standard incorporates a requirement of mens rea.). The Court has not, however, unequivocally stated that in such a situation, a statute may be facially invalidated on vagueness grounds without considering whether the statute is invalid in all applications. Indeed, in Hoffman Estates, the Supreme Court noted that the Court has recognized that a scienter requirement may mitigate a law's vagueness, see Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 498, but at the same time stated that when a statute is challenged on vagueness grounds, the complainant must demonstrate that the law is impermissibly vague in all of its applications, Id. at 497. Given the absence of clear Supreme Court precedent on the subject, the White court's opinion is not contrary to clearly established federal law, whether or not the Michigan statute lacks a scienter requirement.See Robert P. Faulkner & Douglas H. Hsaio, And Where You Go I'll Follow: The Constitutionality of Antistalking Laws and Proposed Model Legislation, 31 Harv. J. on Legis. 1, 9-11 (1994) (characterizing the Michigan statute as troubling because it lacks a specific intent requirement). Thus, under §2254(d)(1), a federal habeas court cannot say that the Michigan courts erred in disallowing a facial challenge on vagueness grounds.