Court Opinion

ID: 9628910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:33:59.577404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:22.620171
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I join in Judge Kennedy’s dissenting opinion which argues that 18 U.S.C. § 2257 is facially overbroad and unduly threatens constitutionally protected speech. I write separately only to indicate why I believe that some of the reasoning employed by this Court in its 1998 opinion pertaining to this case, which addressed an as-applied challenge to the statute, is no longer controlling.
In 1998, I authored the opinion for this Court in Connection Distrib. Co. v. Reno, 154 F.3d 281 (6th Cir.1998) (“Connection I”). At that time, we addressed the likely merits of Connection’s as-applied challenge, and were not presented with a facial challenge to the statute. We affirmed the district court’s decision to deny Connection a preliminary injunction because we believed that Connection was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its as-applied challenge. My present position in rejecting the amended statute as facially unconstitutional may appear at odds with the views expressed in Connection I, where I found the statute constitutional, as applied. However, based on the record that has developed since Connection I as well as an amendment to the statute since enacted, Connection’s as-applied challenge now has greater merit than it once did.
The statutory scheme at issue requires individuals depicted in “actual sexually explicit” images, such as Connection’s advertisers, to provide government-issued photo identification verifying their age to producers such as Connection. 18 U.S.C. § 2257(b)(1); 28 C.F.R. § 75.2(a)(1). The producer must photocopy the identification, record any aliases the person has used in the past, record where the image is published if it is published on the Internet, and file this information in separately maintained records. 18 U.S.C. § 2257(b); 28 C.F.R. § 75.2(a), (e). These records are then subject to inspection by the attorney general every four months, or more frequently if there is “a reasonable suspicion to believe that a violation ... has occurred[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 2257(c); 28 C.F.R. § 75.5(d). In 2003, Congress amended the statute to allow the government to use evidence obtained from the records to prosecute crimes other than record-keeping violations, including child pornography, sexual exploitation of chil*368dren, and obscenity. 18 U.S.C. § 2257(d)(2); see Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act, Pub.L. No. 108-21, § 511(a), 117 Stat. 650, 684 (2003). Congress also increased the penalties for violations of the record-keeping provisions, which may now be charged as felonies punishable up to five years in prison, or up to ten years for a second offense. § 2257(i); 117 Stat. at 685.
In Connection I, we determined that the statute’s record-keeping requirement is content-neutral because “the Act is not directed at protected speech but rather unprotected conduct — namely, child pornography- — that may be identified by speech.” 154 F.3d at 291. Intermediate scrutiny applies to such content-neutral regulations that impose an incidental burden on speech. Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 662, 114 S.Ct. 2445, 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994). To survive intermediate scrutiny, the regulation must be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest,” and must “leave open ample alternatives for communication of the information.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989). The government bears the burden of proving that its regulation meets this standard. United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 816, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000).
In Connection I, we denied a preliminary injunction based on Connection’s as-applied challenge to the statute because we found that “the [record-keeping] provisions of [§ 2257] do not prohibit the sexually explicit speech at issue or unduly burden the opportunity of Connection and its readers to engage in the expression.” 154 F.3d at 292. We also found that Connection did not demonstrate that the age reporting requirement chilled constitutionally protected expression because Connection’s proof was based largely on “anecdotal evidence and supposition.” Id. at 292-93. Connection argued that the greatest likelihood of a chilling effect would come from the fear on the part of Connection’s advertisers that their identifying information would be unlawfully leaked to the public; we believed such a fear to be unfounded and unduly speculative. See id. at 294. We did not believe Connection had made a showing that the statute would compel advertisers to stop advertising simply because they would have to submit photo identification to the magazine along with their advertisements. Accordingly, we believed that “ample alternative channels” to advertise remained open. Id. at 293-94.
Connection no longer suffers from the same lack of evidence. The record now before this Court includes data showing that between 1991 and 2004, Connection’s annual revenue from advertisements fell from $44,634.74 to $8,000.21, while magazine sales revenue fell from $975,872.98 to $385,874.21 during the same period. These numbers support the claims of the two newly added Plaintiffs who assert that they would have advertised in a Connection magazine but for the reporting requirement and the fear of being “outed” as a swinger or being subjected to a government investigation.
More importantly, the statute itself no longer begins and ends with the record-keeping requirement; because of the 2003 amendment, it now includes the threat of criminal prosecution for child pornography, sexual exploitation of children, and obscenity, based on information in the records required by the statute. See § 2257(d)(2). The amendment increases the likelihood that a reasonable person would be deterred from the protected activity at issue in this case, and calls into *369doubt this Court’s finding in Connection I that the statute’s provisions do not “unduly burden the opportunity of Connection and its readers to engage in the expression.” 154 F.3d at 292.
Because the statute now explicitly authorizes the government to use the identifying information for the purpose of prosecuting other crimes, the fear of Connection’s law-abiding advertisers that they may one day be subject to criminal investigation or prosecution is not unreasonable. To minimize this concern by stating that adult swingers who follow the law have nothing to fear ignores the reality that law-abiding people unfortunately can mistakenly become the targets of criminal prosecutions, with all of the accompanying burdens. The majority opinion therefore misses the point when it concludes that swingers who have already been willing to provide their names and addresses to Connection should not be reluctant to do so simply because a photo identification is now required as well; the issue is not the added piece of information swingers must provide, but the additional use to which that information may be put that the statute now sanctions. Further, it is not necessarily inconsistent to value anonymity in one form and not another. See Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., v. Vill. of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 167, 122 S.Ct. 2080, 153 L.Ed.2d 205 (2002) (“The fact that circulators revealed their physical identities did not foreclose our consideration of the circulators’ interest in maintaining their anonymity.”).
We stated in Connection I that “courts must weigh the interests at stake in determining whether a statute impermissibly burdens free speech.” 154 F.3d at 292. This kind of analysis is not static in an as-applied ease; although the government will always have a significant interest in eradicating and prosecuting cases of child pornography, the nature of the burden imposed by a particular statute may become more evident over time. This is especially true when a court first addresses the issue in the context of a motion for preliminary injunction, where the record has not been fully developed and the court only considers the likelihood of future success on the merits. See Golden v. Kelsey-Hayes Co., 73 F.3d 648, 653 (6th Cir.1996). Moreover, the fact that the government’s interest here is clearly compelling does not obviate this Court’s need to continue balancing that interest with the burdens the regulation imposes. See Watchtower, 536 U.S. at 167, 122 S.Ct. 2080 (requiring balance of interests even while recognizing importance of challenged regulation’s aim of crime prevention). Connection’s newly presented evidence and the increased possibility of criminal penalties together indicate that for Connection and its advertisers, the statute imposes a very real burden on their protected speech — a burden considerably greater than the record indicated in 1998.
Therefore, while the facial invalidity of the statute may render a final analysis of the as-applied question unnecessary, I have written separately to underscore my reasons for believing that the statute may also fail to survive an as-applied challenge to its constitutionality, notwithstanding this Court’s prior ruling in Connection I.