Opinion ID: 542009
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Additional Challenges to Certification.

Text: 69 The United States contends that aside from being frivolous, Goland's constitutional questions should not be certified to the en banc court because they arise in the course of a criminal prosecution. 23 This argument has no merit; the Supreme Court has held explicitly that the same constitutional issues could be raised by the same parties in both a declaratory judgment action and an ongoing enforcement proceeding. CALMED, 453 U.S. 182, 101 S.Ct. 2712. 70 The Commission also urges that the certification provision should apply only to facial and not to as applied challenges. The Ninth Circuit explicitly rejected this limitation in its decision in California Medical Ass'n v. FEC, 641 F.2d 619, 632 (1980). The suggestion ... to limit en banc hearings to cases presenting issues of 'facial' validity ... does not avoid difficult constitutional questions, and it may compound them.... The distinction between facial issues and other issues ... is an unstable juridical category. The difficulties it presents are sufficiently metaphysical that the occasions to draw such fine lines should not be multiplied beyond necessity.