Opinion ID: 77679
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alternative Facial Challenge: The Overbreadth Exception

Text: 62 Even if the ordinance contains permissible time, place and manner restrictions and is content-neutral, L.C. urges the court to invalidate it on overbreadth grounds. As general rule, those who challenge the validity of a statute on facial grounds must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987). The fact that [a legislative act] might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid .... Id. 63 However, the Supreme Court has carved out a narrow exception to this rule in what is known as the overbreadth doctrine, which allows a litigant to assert a facial challenge to a statute because it could compromise the First Amendment rights of parties not before the Court. Horton v. City of St. Augustine, 272 F.3d 1318, 1331 (11th Cir.2001) (citing Salerno, 481 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 612, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). Thus, the litigant challenges the statute on facts that apply to others. CAMP Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. City of Atlanta, 451 F.3d 1257, 1271 (11th Cir.2006). The Court reserves this exception for cases involving restrictions on the right to free speech. Horton, 272 F.3d at 1331 (citing Salerno, 481 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095). The rationale behind the exception is that the very existence of some broadly written laws has the potential to chill the expressive activity of others not before the court. Id. (quoting Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 129, 112 S.Ct. 2395, 120 L.Ed.2d 101 (1992)). 64 Accordingly, the Supreme Court has permitted facial challenges based on overbreadth where an ordinance delegates overly broad discretion to enforcement officers, creating an impermissible risk of suppression of ideas in every application, and where an ordinance penalizes a substantial amount of speech that is constitutionally protected. Forsyth, 505 U.S. at 129-30, 112 S.Ct. 2395 (citations omitted). In general, however, the Supreme Court and this Circuit have only applied the exception in cases where the ordinance makes access to a forum for speech contingent upon issuance of a license or permit. Horton, 272 F.3d at 1331-32; See also United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231, 1236 (11th Cir.2000); Cannabis Action Network, Inc. v. City of Gainesville, 231 F.3d 761, 768 (11th Cir.2000), vacated on other grounds, 534 U.S. 1110, 122 S.Ct. 914, 151 L.Ed.2d 881 (2002) (citing Ward, 491 U.S. at 793, 109 S.Ct. 2746). 65 Neither of these situations applies to the ordinance being challenged here. Section 21-28 of the County Code does not impose prior restraint features on speech. It does not establish a permitting or licensing regime that would make the use of sound reproduction devices contingent upon issuance of a County or City permit. See Cannabis Action Network, 231 F.3d at 770 (noting that the key to determining whether a statute qualifies as a prior restraint is whether it authorizes the suppression of speech in advance of its expression). Nor does the ordinance impose criminal penalties for playing a sound reproduction device at excessively loud volume. The County imposes a civil fine of $100.00 for excessive noise violations. MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL., CODE § 8CC-10 (1985, as amended 2005). 66 We believe there is little risk that the ordinance, by its very existence, would lead third parties to censor their own speech. See Members of City Council of the City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 799, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984) (noting that [i]n order to decide whether the overbreadth exception is applicable in a particular case, we have weighed the likelihood that the statute's very existence will inhibit free expression). Thus, as a threshold matter, it is not clear that L.C.'s overbreadth challenge falls within the parameters of the overbreadth doctrine. See Ward, 491 U.S. at 793, 109 S.Ct. 2746. 67 Moreover, to prevail on an overbreadth challenge, a litigant must show from the text of [the law] and from actual fact, that substantial overbreadth exists. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 122, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003), quoting N.Y. State Club Ass'n v. City of New York, 487 U.S. 1, 14, 108 S.Ct. 2225, 101 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988). It is not sufficient to demonstrate that there is a possibility of unconstitutional application in the case of third parties, a law is substantially overbroad only if it reaches substantially beyond the permissible scope of legislative regulation. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 800 n. 19, 104 S.Ct. 2118 (quoting John Calvin Jeffries Jr., Rethinking Prior Restraint, 92 Yale L.J. 409, 425 (1983)). 68 L.C. has suggested various hypothetical scenarios under which the County noise ordinance might be unconstitutionally applied to prohibit persons from playing sound at any level beyond that necessary for convenient hearing. For example, L.C. argues, this language could prohibit sound that would not even be audible to persons outside the room where it is being played, much less sufficiently noisome to generate a complaint from neighboring inhabitants. The convenient hearing clause does not prohibit sound altogether. It provides a flexible standard for determining when noise levels within a chamber where a sound is being played become excessive. The standard is tied to the comfort level of the voluntary listeners within that particular chamber—whether that chamber is a structure, an open-air atrium within a structure, a vehicle, etc. 69 Clearly, the standard needs to be flexible. The convenient hearing needs of persons who are dancing to club music in the open atrium of a 20,000 foot square, two-story building will differ from those of persons who are gathered in an apartment to watch an evening of the Boston Pops on television. Section 21-28(b) of the County Code provides a standard that is flexible in order to allow both groups of voluntary listeners to hear sound at a level that matches their particular needs. 70 We do not believe that there is a realistic threat of substantial overbreadth here either from the text of the law or from actual fact. L.C.'s overbreadth challenge fails on the merits. And, as we have noted, given that the ordinance does not impose prior restraints on speech, L.C.'s overbreadth challenge is simply without merit. 71