Court Opinion

ID: 9487489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:17:42.647454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:17.854272
License: Public Domain

CANBY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the statute under which Melugin was convicted was not unconstitutionally vague, and that it was intended to apply to the type of conduct engaged in by Melugin. I also agree that a jury could properly find that Melugin’s communication was a “true threat.” Where I differ respectfully from the majority is in the matter of facial overbreadth. In my view, AS § 11.56.510(a)(1), when read in the light of its incorporated definitions in §§ 11.81.900(b)(55) and 11.41.520, is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face. Unlike the majority, I do not believe that the statute was sufficiently narrowed by the Alaska Court of Appeals.
Our key precedent regarding facial over-breadth is Wurtz v. Risley, 719 F.2d 1438 (9th Cir.1983). Wurtz involved a threat of rape. The governing statute made it a felony to communicate, with the purpose of causing another to perform or omit an act, a threat to perform any of a listed number of acts including a threat to “commit any criminal offense.” Wurtz, 719 F.2d at 1439 (quoting Mont.Code Ann. § 45-5-203(l)(c) (1981)). We held that the latter phrase rendered the statute fatally overbroad on its face, because it included threats to commit minor victimless crimes. Id. at 1442. It would therefore be a felony to threaten an owner of a segregated restaurant with a sit-in, or a boycott. Id. We said:
The state, of course, may punish minor infractions when they actually occur. But to punish as a felony the mere communication of a threat to commit such a minor infraction when the purpose is to induce action — any action — by someone, is to chill the kind of “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate on public issues that lies at the core of the first amendment.”

Id.

The Alaska statutory scheme suffers from the same deficiency, except in worse degree. As the majority opinion points out, § 11.56.510(a)(1)(D) makes it a crime for anyone to “threaten anyone with intent to ... affect the outcome of an official proceeding.” A different section defines “threat” as follows: “ ‘threat’ means a menace ... to engage in conduct described in AS 11.41.520(a)(l)-(7) but under- AS 11.41.520(a)(1) includes all threats to inflict physical injury on anyone....” By this reference to § 11.41.520(a), which is Alaska’s extortion statute, a “threat” includes, among other things, “threatening to:
(1) inflict physical injury on anyone, ... or commit any other crime;
(2) accuse anyone of crime;
(3) expose confidential information or a secret, whether true or false, tending to subject a person to hatred, contempt or ridicule or to impair the person’s credit or business repute; '
(6) testify or provide information or withhold testimony or information with respect to a person’s legal claim or defense; or
(7) inflict any other harm which would not benefit the person making the threat or suggestion.”
AS § 11.41.520(a).
Subsection (1) virtually duplicates the phrase that led to a finding of unconstitutionality in Wurtz; it proscribes a threat to commit “any ... crime.” To borrow an example from Wurtz, the Alaska statute would “apply to the citizen who tells city council members that if they fail to lower parking fees she will park without putting a coin in the meter.” Wurtz, 719 F.2d at 1442. It is true that § 11.81.900(b)(55) states that subsection (1) “includes all threats to inflict physical injury on anyone,” but that clause does not constitute a limitation to threats of physical injury; it simply provides that subsection (1) “includes” all threats of physical injury.1
*1489Most of the other subsections are equally overbroad. Subsection (2), as Melugin argues, would apply to a spouse’s statement that “I will file a criminal complaint against you for beating the children [true] so that the court does not grant custody of the children to you.” Subsection (6)' would include a threat to a litigant that, if he did not dismiss his ease, the speaker would testify on the other side. Subsection (7), as Melugin contends, would apply to a statement that “I’m going to lay off my workers and close my business if you don’t dismiss this case against me.” 2
These examples make it clear that the Alaska statute is at least as broad in its definition of “threat” as was the statute in Wurtz. It is true that the Alaska statute requires an intent to “otherwise affect the outcome of an official proceeding.” The statute in Wurtz merely required a purpose “to cause another to perform or omit the performance of any act.” In that sense, the Alaska statute is narrower, but not sufficiently so. The number of activities that can be construed as intended to affect the outcome of an undefined “official proceeding” are legion.
The Alaska Court of Appeals did narrow the construction of the “outcome” clause to a degree. In reply to Melugin’s vagueness challenge, the Court of Appeals stated that “when applied to the context of a judicial proceeding, the statutory phrase ‘affect the outcome of an official proceeding,’ unambiguously requires the state to prove that the defendant’s threat was intended to secure or prevent a specific dispositive ruling in the case. Proof of intent to alter some preliminary or tangential aspect of proceedings that would have no direct tendency to produce a specific, predictable result would not suffice.” Melugin v. Alaska, No. A-2596, Mem Op. 14 (Alaska App. May 6, 1992). This interpretation narrows the requisite intent somewhat, but it does not affect the nature of the utterance condemned by the Alaska statutory scheme; a threat of trivial or lawful activity (such as disclosing a secret) is enough. Moreover, the Court’s narrowing construction is confined to the context of a judicial proceeding; no limitations are stated for any other kind of official proceedings. Nor does the requirement of intent to secure a “dispos-itive ruling” limit the clause substantially. All of the examples given above sought dis-positive rulings. Indeed, Melugin’s communication itself, which primarily sought a jury trial but could be construed as attempting to avoid a summary judgment, qualified as seeking a “dispositive” ruling.
The Alaska statutes, then, like the statute in Wurtz, are so broad in potential application that the overbreadth must be viewed as “not only real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 615, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2918, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973); see Wurtz, 719 F.2d at 1442. For purposes of overbreadth .balancing, this case is indistinguishable from Wurtz.
The majority opinion concedes that, if the Alaska statutory definition incorporated (as it says it does) all of the types of threats listed in the extortion statute, § 11.41.520(a)(l)-(7), then it might be unconstitutionally over-broad. The majority, however, reads the opinion of the Alaska Court of Appeals in Melugin’s case as having narrowed the statute, or at least subsection (1) of the statute, to threats of physical injury or death. If, as the majority states, the Court of Appeals of Alaska had narrowed AS § 11.56.510(a)(1) so that it proscribed only threats of death or physical injury, then I would agree that the statute would not be facially overbroad. With all due respect to the majority, I am unable to find such a narrowing construction in the opinion of the Alaska Court of Appeals.
The reference by the Alaska Court of Appeals to “threats of death and physical injury” came in a general response to Melugin’s *1490argument that the statute, in proscribing threats without any accompanying conduct, prohibited pure speech in violation of the first amendment. The Court responded: “Similar claims have been uniformly rejected in other jurisdictions. Courts have consistently recognized that statutes proscribing threats of death and physical injury are not, on their face, overbroad. [Citations.]” Mem. Op. 8.
I cannot read this passage as a narrowing construction of the Alaska statute. Nor could I square such a narrowing with the next paragraph of the Alaska Court’s opinion:
To decide the facial validity of Alaska’s interference with official proceedings statute, we must ask “whether the net effect of the statutory scheme is to do more good in advancing governmental interests than harm to first amendment interests.” Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 844, 911-12 (1970). See also City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 804, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 2180, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984). Here, the state has a strong and legitimate interest in preserving the integrity of its judicial processes against interference through threat and intimidation. This interest easily outweighs the marginal risk that the statutory language might, in peculiar situations, extend to legitimate speech. Because the balance clearly preponderates in favor of the state’s interest in protecting against interference with official proceedings, we follow established precedent in holding that the challenged statute is not invalid on its face.
Mem. Op. 8-9. If the Court of Appeals had, in the prior paragraph or anywhere else in its opinion, narrowed the statute to apply only to threats of death or physical injury, it would have been nonsensical for the Court then to proceed to weigh the state’s legitimate interest against the possibility that the statute might “extend to legitimate speech.” In my view, the Court of Appeals recognized that it was dealing with a statute containing a broad and multiple definition of “threat” but it thought that the benefits of the statute outweighed the potential damage to first amendment interests. The process of balancing was legitimate, but the result squarely conflicts with Wurtz.
I conclude, therefore, that the provision of AS § 11.56.510(a)(1)(D) that proscribes “threats,” as further defined in AS § 11.81.900(b)(55) and AS § 11.41.520, with intent to “otherwise affect the outcome of an official proceeding” is unconstitutionally overbroad. I would reverse Melugin’s conviction of that offense.

. The apparent purpose of the statement in AS § 11.81.900(b)(55) including “all threats to inflict physical injury on anyone” is to negate the exception otherwise applicable in the extortion *1489statute for threats to inflict physical injury "under circumstances constituting robbery in any degree.”

. These examples are not rendered invalid by the fact that AS § 11.81.900(b)(55) defines a threat as a “menace.” The majority opinion draws from the word “menace” a requirement of “some evil or improper act.” The statute, however, nowhere so defines “menace.” The dictionary defines "menace” as a threat. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1976).