Court Opinion

ID: 9464466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:33:48.582881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:38.406518
License: Public Domain

TIMBERS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed. But I would affirm on the ground that N.Y.Penal Law § 265.15(3) (McKinney 1976-77 Supp.) is unconstitutional as applied. That is the ground of Judge Owen’s holding. I would not reach the issue as to whether the statute is unconstitutional on its face.
I take it that it is common ground that normally a court should scrutinize the constitutionality of a statute only as applied in the case before it. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610-12 (1973); United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21 (1960); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). It is in the unusual case, such as where the very existence of a statute would chill activity protected by the First Amendment, that other principles override the normal considerations of restraint. See Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 844, 852 (1970). (“[Djeparture from the normal method of judging the constitutionality of statutes must find justification in the favored status of rights to expression and association in the constitutional scheme.”) The difficulties concomitant to an analysis of the facts of a particular case should not impel us unnecessarily to reach a holding with respect to the constitutionality of a statute on its face.
The majority acknowledges that “[wjhere the empirical connection between the proved and presumed facts turns on the presence or absence of one or two clearly identifiable circumstances which were left unmentioned by the legislature we have not hesitated to limit ourselves to an ‘as applied’ holding, upholding the validity of such a statute where the condition is met. . . . ” But the majority then advances what strikes me as the novel proposition that “when the empirical relationship between proved and presumed facts turns . on a variety of circumstances and on the . . . combinations in which they occur, the ‘as applied’ approach resembles more a holding as to the sufficiency of the evidence than the ‘more likely than not’ determination . . . . ” Since the majority correctly notes that we eschew passing on the sufficiency of evidence in habeas corpus proceedings, I should have thought that we would avoid such an approach to constitutional adjudication.
With deference I suggest that the majority’s reliance on this Circuit’s refusal to consider the sufficiency of evidence in habeas proceedings is misplaced. We have avoided consideration of claims regarding the sufficiency of evidence to uphold a state court conviction because they are “essentially . question^] of state law and [do] not rise to federal constitutional dimensions.” Terry v. Henderson, 462 F.2d 1125, 1131 (2 Cir. 1972); see also United States ex rel. Griffin v. Martin, 409 F.2d 1300, 1302 (2 Cir. 1969). This reluctance stems from a desire to avoid intrusion into matters properly the province of the state courts. Furthermore, it has the virtue of prudently avoiding unnecessary constitutional showdowns. In the instant case, these very considerations should stay our hand from precipitously striking down the New York presumption wholesale — the most extreme form of exacerbation of federal-state relations. See Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, supra, 83 Harv.L. Rev. at 849-52.
Finally, no protected activity would be impaired here by our allowing the presumption to operate where it may do so constitutionally.1 Any future abuse of the pre*1012sumption may be remedied when and if it occurs, in which event I would be willing to do so on the basis of Judge Mansfield’s thoughtful analysis of the constitutionality issue as set forth above in the majority opinion.

. In its discussion of People v. Terra, pages 1009, supra, the majority without ruling on the issue appears to acknowledge that in some situations the statutory presumption would be valid.