Opinion ID: 7016508
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Certified Questions as Determinative of This Proceeding

Text: Just as the scope of the 1985 version of Virginia Code § 18.2-391 was determinative in 1989 of whether the statute was constitutional, the- scope of the 1999 Amendment is determinative of whether the statute is constitutional at this time. Ascertaining the scope of the law’s coverage and what compliance measures would preclude conviction is necessary for resolution not only of the First Amendment claim, but also for resolution of the dormant Commerce Clause claim, should it be necessary for us to reach the latter issue. According to the Supreme Court of Virginia, “[a] violation [of Virginia Code § 18.2-391 (1985 version)] must consist of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the bookseller knowingly afforded juveniles an opportunity to peruse harmful materials in his store or, being aware of facts sufficient to put a reasonable person on notice that such opportunity existed, took no reasonable steps to prevent the perusal of such materials by juveniles.” American Booksellers, 236 Va. at 179, 372 S.E.2d at 625 (emphasis added). The question that is now posed by the 1999 Amendment to Virginia Code § 18.2-391, which extends regulation to the Internet, is whether the implementation of a technological screen to sort juveniles from adults constitutes a “reasonable step” that would preclude prosecution. Earlier, the Supreme Court of Virginia explained that “[t]he question whether a bookseller’s efforts were reasonable, in any given set of circumstances is ... an issue of fact,” but “certain general principles may be discerned.” Id. at 179, 372 S.E.2d at 625 (emphasis added). The court instructed that a bookseller who placed restricted books on a shelf within sight of the bookseller had taken a reasonable step to comply with the law, and this form of compliance provided “a clear example of a method a bookseller might easily adopt” to avoid violating the statute. Id. The same sort of interpretative guidance provided by the Supreme Court of Virginia with regard to compliance measures in physical space is now needed with regal’d to compliance measures in cyberspace. Thus, we have presented the first question of whether any technological access controls identified by Virginia would preclude conviction under the 1999 version of Virginia Code § 18.2-391. Similarly, the second question certified addresses the scope of the statute’s coverage in cyberspace. Prior to the 1999 Amendment, the scope of the law’s application was fairly clear — it applied to booksellers, video rental stores, and newsstands in Virginia. With the 1999 Amendment, however, we are uncertain about the scope of the Act as applied to the Internet. In the world of physical bookstores and other merchants located within Virginia’s borders, there was no need to construe the statutory phrase “for commercial purpose” in the portion of the statute stating that “[i]t shall be unlawful ... to knowingly display for commercial purpose in a manner whereby juveniles may examine and peruse” any material deemed “harmful to juveniles.” Va.Code § 18.2-391A (emphasis added). By and large, the physical locations in which pornographic materials were sold, rented, and loaned were the same locations where such materials were knowingly displayed for commercial purpose. The entire focus of the prior litigation was on the law’s application to booksellers and other merchants. Virginia contends that the 1999 Amendment makes the law applicable primarily to Web-based “commercial pornographers.” Although Virginia does not describe what is meant by “commercial pornographer,” it apparently intends to denote by this term — consistent with the reach of the statute prior to the 1999 Amendment — a person or business who sells, rents, or loans pornography and otherwise knowingly displays such pornography in connection with the sale, rental, or loan of pornography. Under this interpretation, the 1999 Amendment merely extends the reach of the law to the electronic equivalent of bookstores, newsstands, and video rental stores. In addition to the cyberspace equivalent of bookstores and newsstands, however, the Internet includes news groups, e-mail, and informational websites, all of which may arguably be operated “for commercial purpose” using a different business model than a traditional bookstore. The plaintiffs, challenging the 1999 Amendment as too broad, point out that [m]ost Internet communications and information remain free of charge, even when displayed or disseminated for commercial purposes. In one common model, many web businesses provide content (e.g. news, sports, weather, traffic information, music, hobby information, and so on) that they hope will attract visitors, and they then sell advertising.... Booksellers and music stores often allow anonymous online visitors to browse excerpts or summaries without charge, and they also may sponsor bulletin boards, chat rooms, provide alerts to matters of special interest to patrons, and so on. The plaintiffs also emphasize that “Internet speech that has a commercial purpose is by no means limited to website displays. Rather, it includes all other Internet modalities.” In response to these assertions, Virginia argues that “[t]here is no evidence that those who send or post messages by these non-web modalities typically do so with a commercial purpose.” It states further that even “assuming that some speakers use non-web-based Internet modalities to display harmful messages for a commercial purpose — and assuming that there is no way to separate the adult and juvenile audiences (an allegation in dispute) — it is by no means evident that those speakers are entitled to engage in harmful speech before such a mixed audience.” One consequence of the plaintiffs’ interpretation is that it results in a reading of the statute that reaches significantly more broadly than Virginia interprets the statute to reach. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has held “that a state statute should not be deemed facially invalid unless it is not readily subject to a narrowing construction by the state courts, and its deterrent effect on legitimate expression is both real and substantial.” Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 216, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975) (internal citations omitted). Cf. Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 122 S.Ct. 1700, 1721, 152 L.Ed.2d 771 (2002) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (noting that the Federal Child Online Protection Act “seems to apply even to speech provided for free, so long as the speaker merely hopes to profit as an indirect result,” and indicating that the Court of Appeals never addressed whether the statute’s “commercial purposes” language significantly narrowed the reach of the statute’s prohibitions); id. (“It is crucial ... to know how limiting is the Act’s limitation to ‘communication for commercial purposes’ ”). Thus, the validity of the Act as extended to cyberspace may depend on how narrowly it is construed by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Accordingly, we have posed the second question, which relates to whether “for commercial purpose” is intended to mean displays made in connection with the “sale, rental, or loan of such materials.” In certifying both questions, we are mindful of the Supreme Court’s admonition that “[wjarnings against premature adjudication of constitutional questions bear heightened attention when a federal court is asked to invalidate a State’s law, for the federal tribunal risks friction-generating error when it endeavors to construe a novel state Act not yet reviewed by the State’s highest court.” Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 79, 117 S.Ct. 1055, 137 L.Ed.2d 170 (1997). Such concerns exist to an even greater extent in the unusual circumstances of this case, where we are asked to invalidate a state law that previously had been held constitutional after the Supreme Court of Virginia construed an earlier version of the same law, with the only difference between the versions provided by the extension of the law’s reach to the Internet. For these reasons, we conclude that “an authoritative construction of the Virginia statute by the Virginia Supreme Court would substantially aid our review of [the] constitutional holding, and might well determine the case entirely.” American Booksellers, 484 U.S. at 386, 108 S.Ct. 636.