Opinion ID: 2427524
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sabir's Vagueness Claim

Text: For a conviction to comport with the constitutional mandate of due process, see U.S. Const. amend. V, the penal statute at issue must define the criminal offense (1) with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and (2) in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983); accord Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2718; United States v. Rybicki, 354 F.3d 124, 129 (2d Cir.2003) ( en banc ). Sabir argues that his conviction violates both prongs of this void-for-vagueness doctrine because § 2339B's prohibitions against providing personnel, training, and expert advice and assistance to terrorist organizations are overbroad and afford insufficient notice to persons who may traduce those prohibitions and inadequate standards for authorities who must enforce them. He contends further that the statutory exception for medicine is too vague to have put him on notice that it did not encompass his consultative services as a physician.
Sabir contends that § 2339B is unconstitutionally vague both on its face and as applied to his case. In support of his facial challenge, Sabir relies primarily on the overbreadth doctrine. This confuses the issue. As the Supreme Court recently observed, vagueness and overbreadth are distinct concerns, the first implicating the Due Process Clause and the latter the First Amendment. See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2719. A statute whose application is clear is not rendered unconstitutionally vague because it proscribes expression protected by the First Amendment. Id. In any event, Sabir fails to state an overbreadth claim. A law is unconstitutionally overbroad if it punishes a substantial amount of protected free speech, judged in relation to [its] plainly legitimate sweep. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 118-19, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). A finding of overbreadth invalidates all enforcement of a challenged law, unless it can be saved by a limiting construction. Id. at 119, 123 S.Ct. 2191. Mindful that such relief is strong medicine, the law rigorously enforces the burden on the challenging party to demonstrate  substantial  infringement of speech. United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 292, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008) (emphasis in original). Sabir's recitation of the applicable legal standards and his conclusory declaration that § 2339B is overbroad do not come close to carrying this burden. As the Supreme Court stated in rejecting a First Amendment challenge to § 2339B, the statute leaves persons free to say anything they wish on any topic, including terrorism. Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2722-23. It does not prohibit independent advocacy of any kind. See id. at 2723, 2728. It does not prohibit or punish mere membership in or association with terrorist organizations. See id. at 2723, 2730. Thus, it does not seek to suppress ideas or opinions in the form of `pure political speech.' Rather, [it] prohibit[s] `material support,' which most often does not take the form of speech at all. And when it does, the statute is carefully drawn to cover only a narrow category of speech to, under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations. Id. at 2723. Such circumstances do not evidence overbreadth. To the extent Sabir asserts that § 2339B is overbroad in limiting a doctor's right to practice medicine, Appellant's Br. at 14-15, he cites no authority locating such a right within the Constitution, much less in the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has long held that there is no right to practice medicine which is not subordinate to the police power of the states ... and also to the power of Congress to make laws necessary and proper to the exercise of its constitutional authority. Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U.S. 581, 596, 47 S.Ct. 210, 71 L.Ed. 422 (1926) (Brandeis, J.) (rejecting physician's claim that, despite powers conferred on Congress by Eighteenth Amendment, he held constitutional right to prescribe such medicines as he deemed best to effect patient's cure); see also Conn v. Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 291-92, 119 S.Ct. 1292, 143 L.Ed.2d 399 (1999) (observing that there is no due process right to practice one's profession free of any restraints and that due process is violated only by complete prohibition of the right to engage in a calling); Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 122, 9 S.Ct. 231, 32 L.Ed. 623 (1889) ([T]here is no arbitrary deprivation of [the right to practice medicine] where its exercise is not permitted because of a failure to comply with conditions imposed by the state for the protection of society.). With particular reference to the First Amendment, a plurality of the Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992), rejected a First Amendment challenge to a state law requiring physicians to provide patients with specific information about certain medical risks, observing that [t]o be sure, the physicians' First Amendment rights not to speak are implicated, ... but only as part of the practice of medicine, subject to reasonable licensing and regulation by the State, id. at 884, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (plurality opinion). Because Sabir thus cannot claim a right to provide medical treatment for terrorists that is not subordinate to ... the power of Congress to make laws necessary and proper to the nation's defense, Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U.S. at 596, 47 S.Ct. 210; see U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, he cannot mount a claim that § 2339B is unconstitutionally overbroad. Nor can Sabir demonstrate overbreadth by faulting § 2339B for not requiring proof of his specific intent to further ... terrorist activities. Appellant's Br. at 24; see Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2718 (construing § 2339B not to require proof of such intent). The argument is grounded not in the First Amendment but in the Fifth, specifically, in the due process requirement that any conviction be supported by evidence of personal guilt. See Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 224-25, 81 S.Ct. 1469, 6 L.Ed.2d 782 (1961). Such a due process concern can arise when criminal liability is premised on mere membership in an organization. See id. at 205-06, 224-28, 81 S.Ct. 1469 (rejecting Fifth Amendment challenge to Smith Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2385 (prohibiting membership in organization advocating overthrow of United States government by force or violence), because conviction required proof of knowing and active membership in organization and intent to contribute to success of specifically illegal activities). No such concern arises with respect to § 2339B, however, because, as we have already observed, that statute does not prohibit simple membership in a terrorist organization. Rather, the statute prohibits the knowing provision of material support to a known terrorist organization. Proof of such provision (whether actual, attempted, or conspiratorial) together with the dual knowledge elements of the statute is sufficient to satisfy the personal guilt requirement of due process. In sum, Sabir fails to state a claim much less demonstratethat § 2339B is either facially vague in violation of due process or overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.