Opinion ID: 158785
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statutory defenses

Text: 59 Defendants next suggest that the defenses in the New Mexico statute provide the sort of 'narrowing tailoring' that will save an otherwise patently invalid unconstitutional provision. Reno, 521 U.S. at 882. We disagree. The Supreme Court in Reno held that a good faith defense virtually identical to the defense provided in § 30-37-3.2(C)(1) was illusory. Id. at 881. It also held that a defense requiring verification by means of a credit card or adult access or identification code was equally ineffective because the government failed to prove that the proffered defense would significantly reduce the heavy burden on adult speech produced by the prohibition on offensive displays. Reno, 521 U.S. at 882. Finally, defendants in this case have not demonstrated, nor do they seriously argue, that the third defense, exempting those who in good faith establish a mechanism such as labeling, segregation or other means that enables indecent material to be automatically blocked or screened will be any more effective at actually preventing minors from accessing material on the Internet. 60 We therefore agree with the district court that, as in Reno, the defenses to section 30-37-3.2(A) do not salvage an otherwise unconstitutionally broad statute. In so holding, we note that a district court has recently reached the same conclusion regarding a similar statute. See Cyberspace, Communications, Inc., 55 F. Supp. 2d at 751 (holding unconstitutional under the First Amendment a statute prohibiting the knowing[] disseminat[ion] to a minor [of] sexually explicit visual or verbal material that is harmful to minors); see also Shea v. Reno, 930 F. Supp. 916 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (prior to the Supreme Court's analysis in Reno, holding the CDA unconstitutional under the First Amendment).