Opinion ID: 1377930
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facial vs. As-Applied Challenges

Text: At the outset, it is important to understand what the parties are asking us to do: issue a broad pronouncement on the constitutionality of § 216 of the Adam Walsh Act. The district court concluded § 216 is facially unconstitutional and did not purport to resolve an as-applied challenge. There is no discussion of the particular facts and circumstances surrounding Stephens' case in the district court's order or the parties' briefs on appeal. The issue before us is framed in purely legal form and is devoid of any factual context. The Supreme Court takes a dim view of facial challenges to Congressional enactments. Although passing on the validity of a law wholesale may be efficient in the abstract, any gain is often offset by losing the lessons taught by the particular, to which common law method normally looks. Facial adjudication carries too much promise of premature interpretatio[n] of statutes on the basis of factually barebones records.    Facial challenges . . . are . . . to be discouraged. Not only do they invite judgments on fact-poor records, but they entail a further departure from the norms of adjudication in federal courts: overbreadth challenges call for relaxing familiar requirements of standing, to allow a determination that the law would be unconstitutionally applied to different parties and different circumstances from those at hand. Sabri v. United States, 541 U.S. 600, 608-09, 124 S.Ct. 1941, 158 L.Ed.2d 891 (2004). The Supreme Court's disdain for facial challenges is an expression of judicial self-restraint apart from the `case-or-controversy' requirement . . . [,] which is the basis of much standing doctrine. United States v. Lemons, 697 F.2d 832, 835 (8th Cir.1983) (citing Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 443-44, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972)). [F]acial challenges threaten to short circuit the democratic process by preventing laws embodying the will of the people from being implemented in a manner consistent with the Constitution. Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 451, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008). Facial challenges are best when infrequent and are especially to be discouraged when application of the challenged statute to the case at hand would be constitutional when the facts are eventually developed. Sabri, 541 U.S. at 608, 609, 124 S.Ct. 1941. Not surprisingly, then, [a] facial challenge to a legislative Act is . . . the most difficult challenge to mount successfully. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987). In Salerno, the Supreme Court dispose[d] briefly of a facial challenge to the Bail Reform Act under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Id. at 751, 107 S.Ct. 2095. In holding the Bail Reform Act did not deprive defendants of substantive due process, the Supreme Court held a party mounting a facial challenge must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid. The fact that the Bail Reform Act might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid. Id. at 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095. Further, [t]o sustain [the Bail Reform Act's provisions, a court] need only find them `adequate to authorize the pretrial detention of at least some persons charged with crimes,' whether or not they might be insufficient in some particular circumstances. Id. at 751, 107 S.Ct. 2095 (quoting Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 264, 104 S.Ct. 2403, 81 L.Ed.2d 207 (1984)). See also Sherbrooke Turf, Inc. v. Minn. Dep't of Transp., 345 F.3d 964, 971 (8th Cir.2003) (applying Salerno to determine facial validity of a legislative act).