Opinion ID: 148685
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of Marcavage's First Amendment Challenge

Text: At the outset of our analysis we must frame the precise issue before us, as Marcavage does not clearly specify whether he is mounting a facial or an as-applied constitutional attack, and the Magistrate Judge and the District Court did not explicitly clarify the lens through which they viewed that attack. A facial attack tests a law's constitutionality based on its text alone and does not consider the facts or circumstances of a particular case. See City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ'g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 770 n. 11, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). An as-applied attack, in contrast, does not contend that a law is unconstitutional as written but that its application to a particular person under particular circumstances deprived that person of a constitutional right. See, e.g., Wis. Right to Life, Inc. v. FEC, 546 U.S. 410, 411-12, 126 S.Ct. 1016, 163 L.Ed.2d 990 (2006) (per curiam). A criminal defendant may seek to vacate his conviction by demonstrating a law's facial or as-applied unconstitutionality. See, e.g., Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310, 110 S.Ct. 2404, 110 L.Ed.2d 287 (1990); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 97-98, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). In response to our inquiry at oral argument, Marcavage's counsel asserted that his client's challenge was a hybrid of the two. There is certainly nothing impermissible about arguing in the alternative, see Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 876, 892, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2010), but insofar as Marcavage's challenge is facial his burden is significantly heavier, see Nat'l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 580, 118 S.Ct. 2168, 141 L.Ed.2d 500 (1998), and we may dispatch it briefly. There are two main ways to succeed on a facial challenge in the First Amendment context. A plaintiff may demonstrate either `that no set of circumstances exists under which the [law] would be valid,' i.e., that the law is unconstitutional in all of its applications, Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 449, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008) (quoting United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987)), or that the law is overbroad because a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the [law's] plainly legitimate sweep, id. at 449 n. 6, 128 S.Ct. 1184 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). [5] Marcavage cannot meet either test, as he has not even tried to convince us that the regulation criminalizing interference with agency function is unconstitutional for all purposes and all applications or that it is overbroad. See id. at 449 n. 6, 128 S.Ct. 1184; United States v. Bjerke, 796 F.2d 643, 648 (3d Cir.1986). [6] Although his position may want for clarity, Marcavage's chief complaint, as we understand it, is that the government squelched his speech on a particular day and in a particular place because he was talking about abortion, and that the government had no warrant to do so under the circumstances. While a sprinkling of the cases on which he relies involve facial attacks, the outcome Marcavage advocates is for all intents and purposes entirely dependent on the facts of this case, and he nowhere even obliquely suggests that the constitutionality of the regulation at issue should be assessed against a broader backdrop. That is a classic as-applied challenge. See Wash. State Grange, 552 U.S. at 444, 128 S.Ct. 1184; Members of City Council of L.A. v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 802-03, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984). Accordingly, we may train our sights on the question whether the government's regulation of Marcavage's speech was constitutional in this particular case. [7]