Court Opinion

ID: 9748709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:11:02.155889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:38.741260
License: Public Domain

Allen, C.J.,
dissenting. My departure from the majority’s reasoning begins with their assertion that the statute does not implicate a substantial amount of protected conduct; It may well be that the statutory scheme is directed at protecting the public health and welfare by limiting the practice of medicine to those deemed competent in that area, but the broad, almost limitless, sweep of its prohibitions brings common everyday speech and activity within its grasp. Conceding that the topics regulated by 26 V.S.A. § 1311(1) do not relate to the traditional areas of free *139speech afforded protection by the First Amendment, discussion of the topics it does cover probably equals or exceeds, in quantitative terms, discussion of traditional areas. Ruminations about illness and injury comprise a fair portion of our daily conversations and should be entitled to First Amendment protection. That the statute may have a legitimate application does not save it from facial invalidation if it makes unlawful a substantial amount of protected conduct. City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 459 (1987). Because it is “susceptible of regular application to protected expression.” it is overbroad and facially invalid. Id. at 467.
The statute further fails to provide fair warning to potential offenders that certain conduct is proscribed and does not have sufficiently precise standards to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, thereby failing the two-pronged void-for-vagueness test set forth in State v. Purvis, 146 Vt. 441, 442, 505 A.2d 1205, 1206-07 (1985). It covers a wide range of common speech and conduct and fails to distinguish innocuous from criminal conduct.* In addition to providing no clear notice of what conduct is illegal, it gives no guidance to law enforcement officers in applying the statute. The police would indeed be busy enforcing this law by its literal terms. Since it is not feasible for the statute to be literally enforced, law enforcement officials must rely wholly on their own judgments in deciding when to enforce and when to ignore the law. This is impermissible. City of Houston, 482 U.S. at 466-67. “Statutory language of such a standardless sweep allows policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections. Legislatures may not so abdicate their responsibilities for setting the standards of the criminal law.” Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 575 (1974). As the statute criminalizes a substantial amount of protected speech and conduct and does not provide fair warning of the conduct prohibited or adequate standards for enforcement, I believe it to be unconstitutional on its face and would so hold.

 It would, for example, proscribe advice given to a friend for relief of a headache or cold, the recommendation for relief of a pulled muscle by one athlete to another, or the suggestion that a bandage be applied to á wound. These and the many other examples of everyday conduct that are forbidden by the statute support a finding of unconstitutional vagueness and are not just “uncertainty at the margins” or “a parade of bizarre hypothetical cases” for which vagueness would not be found. See Levas & Levas v. Village of Antioch, 684 F.2d 446, 451 (7th Cir. 1982).