Opinion ID: 1326571
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutional overbreadth

Text: Is the statute an overbroad encroachment upon the First Amendment, as Freeman contends? It proscribes distribution of material which is obscene for children. Material which may be obscene for children is not necessarily obscene for adults, even though it is pornographic. Distribution of such pornography to children may constitutionally be forbidden by law. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1968). Distribution to adults can be proscribed only if the pornography is obscene by adult standards. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957). Adults cannot be limited to reading or seeing only those things fit for children. Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 77 S.Ct. 524, 1 L.Ed.2d 412 (1957); Goldstein v. Commonwealth, 200 Va. 25, 104 S.E.2d 66 (1958). The distribution proscription in the Virginia statute extends to distribution to adults of child pornography which may not be obscene for adults, and Freeman thinks that its reach is fatally overbroad. We do not think so. The destiny of the state rests with its minor citizens. Children are not always aware of the dangers to which they are exposed. Children may be led and misled. The state has a compelling interest, one central to its right to survive, in protecting its children from treatment it determines is physically or psychologically injurious to youth. The General Assembly has determined that the production and distribution of child pornography is such treatment. The statute it has enacted was intended to further the state's interest by punishing and deterring such treatment. As the data we have discussed shows, the legislature was justified in concluding that the process of production from which the harm flows cannot effectively be curtailed unless the profit motive is contained. Whatever restriction the distribution penalties impose upon the First Amendment rights of adults who want to sell or view child pornography is merely an effect incidental to the achievement of the goal the statute pursues. [A] government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1679, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968). As Justice Black said in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 51, 91 S.Ct. 746, 754, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), the existence of a chilling effect, even in the area of First Amendment rights, has never been considered a sufficient basis, in and of itself, for prohibiting state action. Where a statute does not directly abridge free speech, but  while regulating a subject within the State's power  tends to have the incidental effect of inhibiting First Amendment rights, it is well settled that the statute can be upheld if the effect on speech is minor in relation to the need for control of the conduct and the lack of alternative means for doing so. Freeman also contends that the statute is overbroad because, he says, it sweeps within its purview artists and sculptors whose work requires no models at all more than imagination. The statute does not reach so far. The conduct it defines is penalized only when a person less than eighteen years of age has been used as a model in the production of child pornography. And, Freeman complains, [t]here is no exception for parents or family. But he does not explain why a parent or relative has a First Amendment right superior to that of a stranger to use a juvenile member of the family as a model for the production of pornographic material.