Court Opinion

ID: 9428689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:27.012152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.699548
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed. I do not, however, believe it necessary to discuss the overbreadth problem in order to reach this result. The Court of Appeals held the ordinance to be void for vagueness; it did not discuss any problem of ovérbreadth. That opinion should be reversed simply because it erred in its analysis of the vagueness problem presented by the ordinance.
I agree with the majority that a facial vagueness challenge to an economic regulation must demonstrate that “the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications.” Ante, at 495. I also agree with the majority’s statement that the “marketed for use” standard in the ordinance is “sufficiently clear.” There is, in my view, no need to go any further: If it *508is “transparently clear” that some particular conduct is restricted by the ordinance, the ordinance survives a facial challenge on vagueness grounds.
Technically, overbreadth is a standing doctrine that permits parties in cases involving First Amendment challenges to government restrictions on noncommercial speech to argue that the regulation is invalid because of its effect on the First Amendment rights of others not presently before the Court. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 612-615 (1973). Whether the appellee may make use of the overbreadth doctrine depends, in the first instance, on whether or not it has a colorable claim that the ordinance infringes on constitutionally protected, noncommercial speech of others. Although appellee claims that the ordinance does have such an effect, that argument is tenuous at best and should be left to the lower courts for an initial determination.
Accordingly, I concur in the judgment reversing the decision below.