Opinion ID: 2735164
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: “Any Other Material”

Text: Brune’s second effort to establish overbreadth is likewise insufficient. He argues that the phrase “any other material” is expansive and possibly limitless. He claims the phrase sweeps into the statute’s orbit broad categories of media protected by the First Amendment. Aplt. Br. at 26–28 (“Unlike a book or movie – ‘Material,’ when such a term includes a web site or other internet based products, does not have a beginning and an end. It is not self-contained.”). Taken to its extreme, Brune’s position is that the statute potentially criminalizes all Internet access. When viewed in isolation, it is difficult to dispute that “any other material” might be susceptible to several meanings—the nominal form of the word “material” is a flexible term that defies singular description. 10 But no statute is an island unto itself. We can look around to provide substance and context to a potentially unclear term. See Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656, 662 (2001) (“We do not . . . construe the meaning of statutory terms in a vacuum.”). Since Congress 10 It is likely that Congress intended “any other material” to remain somewhat vague in order to encapsulate a multitude of objects that could not be comprehensively and individually listed out. See Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law 33 (1st ed. 2012). -21- has left undefined the word “material” and the phrase “any other material” in the statute, we give the terms their “ordinary meaning.” Kouichi Taniguchi v. Kan. Pac. Saipan, Ltd., 132 S. Ct. 1997, 2002 (2012). An inquiry into a statutory term’s meaning must consider the ordinary, contemporary meaning at the time Congress enacted the statute. BedRoc Ltd. v. United States, 541 U.S. 176, 184 (2004). Unlike many instances, simply resorting to a dictionary definition in this case is not especially helpful. The multiple definitions of “material” preclude an obvious, unitary usage. 11 Nevertheless, the possibility that several workable definitions of “material” can properly imbue the statute does not lead to an expansive reading of this term. In fact, the reverse is true as we are required to construe a phrase within a statute with reference to its accompanying words “in order to avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress.” Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U.S. 303, 307 (1961). To this end, any lingering doubt about the limiting principle applicable to the residual phrase “any other material” is quickly satisfied by scrutinizing intrinsic statutory aids. First of all, the wording of the statute invites the application of the canon of construction of ejusdem generis: when “general words 11 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, for example, offers more than five nominal definitions of “material,” almost all of which could conceivably—albeit some more fittingly than others—apply to the statutory text. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1392 (1986). -22- follow specific words in a statutory enumeration, the general words are construed to embrace only objects similar in nature to those objects enumerated by the preceding specific words.” Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 114–15 (2001) (quoting 2A Norman J. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47.17 (5th ed. 1991)). Stated another way, when a broad reading of an undefined term serves to undermine Congress’s decision to specifically list items that the statute covers, then the undefined term can only be defined with reference to the items that precede it. Applied to § 2252A(a)(5)(B), ejusdem generis advises that “any other material” should be construed as like in kind to, and no more expansive in scope than, “book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, [and] computer disk.” Those terms denote specific, concrete forms of media that are used to capture, store, or deliver information as a means of communication. They are tangible illustrations of media, rather than mediums themselves. Brune’s assertion that such a definition creates an effective ban on the Internet is incorrect for this very reason. 12 The Internet is the medium; content available on the Internet, including, at a minimum, downloadable digitized images of child pornography from unique 12 The government does not help in arguing the statute is limited to only “webpages” in the Internet context. That term is vague itself and provides little guidance as to what types of Internet material would be subject to the statute. Because it is unnecessary to do so for the statute to survive Brune’s overbreadth attack, we decline to interpret the statute in the manner suggested by the government. -23- uniform resource locators (URLs), are the specific type of media that the statute targets. 13 In addition, as between multiple reasonable interpretations of a statute, we will always prefer one that sustains constitutionality to one that does not under the presumption of constitutional validity. NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 30 (1937) (“The cardinal principle of statutory construction is to save and not to destroy.”). In fact, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Nat’l Fed’n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius, 132 S. Ct. 2566, 2594 (2012) (quoting Hooper v. California, 155 U.S. 648, 657 (1895)). Here, reading the definition of “any other material” expansively, as Brune would have it, implicitly eviscerates the statute’s element of scienter and criminalizes otherwise innocent conduct—a reading that smacks of overbreadth. See United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 13 As we explained in United States v. Dobbs, downloadable images on the Internet are automatically stored to a computer’s cache when a person visits a URL on the Internet. 629 F.3d 1199, 1201–02 (10th Cir. 2011). One might argue that this fact presents an overbreadth problem with respect to § 2252A(a)(5)(B) for the careless Internet user who stumbles across a URL containing images of child pornography. But the government still must prove that the defendant “knowingly” accessed that URL. Without a “pattern of child-pornography-related searches immediately preceding the creation of illegal images in the cache,” or similarly sufficient evidence, the government would have difficulty showing the knowing access of “material.” See id. at 1205. As further protection against this scenario, and as we have already addressed, Brune concedes that the statute requires the offender to “know” that the “material” contains images of child pornography. See supra at 16. -24- 70 (1994). Most users of the Internet are likely aware that child pornography exists on the Internet. Under Brune’s broad interpretation of the statute, these innocuous Internet patrons, fully aware that the “Internet” contains child pornography somewhere in its disreputable underworld, would form the necessary intent to violate the statute the moment they logged on to access the Internet. That is not an obvious interpretation of the text, and reading it that way violates our duty to interpret a statute “where fairly possible so as to avoid substantial constitutional questions.” Id. at 69; see also Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 381 (2005) (“[Constitutional avoidance] is a tool for choosing between competing plausible interpretations of a statutory text, resting on the reasonable presumption that Congress did not intend the alternative which raises serious constitutional doubts.”). So, to ensure that the statute maintains the broadly applicable scienter element required of a criminal statute, see Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263 (1952), it is necessary to understand “any other material” as something more precise than the “Internet.” This limiting construction seems obvious from the statutory text, but, in the least, § 2252A(a)(5)(B) is “readily susceptible” to our interpretation and no “rewriting” is required to get there. See Stevens, 559 U.S. at 481. 14 14 In the vagueness context, which overlaps significantly with overbreadth, “[i]t has long been [the Supreme Court’s] practice . . . before striking a federal -25- Because the Internet as a whole is not a “material” within the meaning of § 2252A(a)(5)(B), the degree to which the catchall provision must be further tapered is beyond the scope of an overbreadth challenge. Put simply, once the Internet is excluded from the tagalong phrase, “any other material,” Brune’s overbreadth challenge to the statute falls flat, regardless of what other materials are included within that phrase. Furthermore, there is no “realistic danger” that the statute as written will significantly chill protected speech, and we have not been made aware of any cases where the government has targeted innocent Internet browsing or related activity under this statute. See Williams, 553 U.S. at 302. As a medium, the Internet has undoubtedly generated some complications in ascertaining the precise contours of the First Amendment in an age of technology that is constantly changing and difficult to define. Cf. Sturm, 672 F.3d at 901 (examining the extent to which “visual depictions” of child pornography refer to the substantive content of the image or a particular item containing that image for the purpose of establishing a federal jurisdictional nexus). Accordingly, and particularly in the context of child pornography, Congress and the Supreme Court have engaged in an ongoing effort to strike a careful balance between safeguarding constitutionally protected speech and statute as impermissibly vague, to consider whether the prescription is amenable to a limiting construction.” Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 405 (2010). -26- enforcing legitimate criminal laws. See, e.g., Williams, 553 U.S. at 292–93. That careful balance is not disrupted by § 2252A(a)(5)(B) because, again, any protected speech that falls under the ambit of the statute is insubstantial in comparison to its plainly legitimate sweep. Brune has not sufficiently met his burden to demonstrate otherwise.