POWELL‘S BOOKS, INC.; OLD MULTNOMAH BOOK STORE, LTD., DBA Annie Bloom‘s Books; DARK HORSE COMICS, INC.; COLETTE‘S: GOOD FOOD + HUNGRY MINDS, LLC; BLUEJAY, INC., DBA Paulina Springs Books; ST. JOHN‘S BOOKSELLERS, LLC; AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS FOUNDATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION; ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS, INC.; FREEDOM TO READ FOUNDATION, INC.; COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF OREGON; CANDACE MORGAN; PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE COLUMBIA/WILLAMETTE, INC.; CASCADE AIDS PROJECT, Plaintiffs, v. JOHN R. KROGER, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of Oregon; MATT SHIRTCLIFF, Baker County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JOHN HAROLDSON, Benton County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JOHN FOOTE, Clackamas County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JOSHUA MARQUIS, Clatsop County District Attorney, in his official capacity; STEVE ATCHISON, Columbia County District Attorney, in his official capacity; PAUL FRASIER, Coos County District Attorney, in his official capacity; GARY WILLIAMS, Crook County District Attorney, in his official capacity; EVERETT DIAL, Curry County District Attorney, in his official capacity; MICHAEL DUGAN, Deschutes County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JACK BANTA, Douglas County District Attorney, in his official capacity; MARION WEATHERFORD, Gilliam County District Attorney, in his official capacity; RYAN JOSLIN, Grant County District Attorney, in his official capacity; TIM COLAHAN, Harney County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JOHN SEWELL, Hood River County District Attorney, in his official capacity; MARK HUDDLESTON, Jackson County District Attorney, in his official capacity; PETER L. DEUEL, Jefferson County District Attorney, in his official capacity; STEPHEN D. CAMPBELL, Josephine County District Attorney, in his official capacity; EDWIN I. CALEB, Klamath County District Attorney, in his official capacity; DAVID A. SCHUTT, Lake County District Attorney, in his official capacity; DOUGLASS HARCLEROAD, Lane County District Attorney, in his official capacity; BERNICE BARNETT, Lincoln County District Attorney, in her official capacity; JASON CARLILE, Linn County District Attorney, in his official capacity; DAN NORRIS, Malheur County District Attorney, in his official capacity; WALTER M. BEGLAU, Marion County District Attorney, in his official capacity; ELIZABETH BALLARD, Morrow County District Attorney, in her official capacity; MICHAEL D. SCHRUNK, Multnomah County District Attorney, in his official capacity; JOHN FISHER, Polk County District Attorney, in his official capacity; WADE M. MCLEOD, Sherman County District Attorney, in his official capacity; WILLIAM BRYAN PORTER, Tillamook County District Attorney, in his official capacity; DEAN GUSHWA, Umatilla County District Attorney, in his official capacity; TIM THOMPSON, Union County District Attorney, in his official capacity; DANIEL OUSLEY, Wallowa County District Attorney, in his official capacity; ERIC J. NISLEY, Wasco County District Attorney, in his official capacity; ROBERT HERMANN, Washington County District Attorney, in his official cаpacity; THOMAS W. CUTSFORTH, Wheeler County District Attorney, in his official capacity; BRAD BERRY, Yamhill County District Attorney, in his official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 09-35153, No. 09-35154
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
September 20, 2010
D.C. No. 3:08-cv-00501-MO
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon
Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 8, 2010—Portland, Oregon
Filed September 20, 2010
Opinion by Judge McKeown
Michael A. Bamberger, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, New York, New York; P.K. Runkles-Pearson, Stoel Rives
Michael A. Casper, Oregon Department of Justice, Salem, Oregon, for the defendants-appellees.
J. Joshua Wheeler, The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Charlottesville, Virginia, for amicus curiae.
OPINION
McKEOWN, Circuit Judge:
We consider here the constitutionality of a pair of Oregon statutes intended to stop child sexual abuse in its early stages. The statutes broadly take aim at practices of “luring” and “grooming” that expose minors to sexually explicit materials in the hopes of lowering their inhibitions against engaging in sexual conduct. The “furnishing” statute,
Appellants, a broad cross-section of booksellers; non-profit literary, legal, and health organizations; and a concerned grandmother (together, “Powell‘s Books“), argue that these statutes violate the First Amendment. In particular, Powell‘s Books claims, among other things, that the statutes are facially overbroad and criminalize a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech. We agree.
BACKGROUND
We begin with a review of the statutory scheme. The statutes follow a series of related anti-child abuse laws that the Oregon courts invalidated under the state constitution‘s speech clause in 2000. See State v. Maynard, 5 P.3d 1142, 1149-51 (Or. Ct. App. 2000) (discussing previous cases). In 2007, the legislature went back to the drawing board and enacted the current statutes in an effort to address the perceived gap in Oregon‘s child abuse prevention scheme.
Section 054, the “furnishing” statute, criminalizes the act of “intentionally furnish[ing] a child [under the age of thirteen], or intentionally permit[ting] a child to view, sexually explicit material” where the person “knows that the material is sexually explicit material.”
Section 057 criminalizes “luring,” which is defined as “[f]urnish[ing] to, or us[ing] with, a minor” a “visual representation or explicit verbal description or narrative account of sexual conduct” for the purpose of “[a]rousing or satisfying the sexual desires of the person or the minor” or “[i]nducing the minor to engage in sexual conduct.”
ANALYSIS
We address Powell‘s Books’ overbreadth challenge alone as it suffices to dispose of this case.7 In examining an overbreadth challenge, we follow a familiar sequential analysis. First, we construe the reach of the statutory provisions. United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 293 (2008). Second, we inquire whether the statute criminalizes a “substantial amount” of expressive activity. Id. at 297. Finally, we consider whether the statute is “readily susceptible” to a limiting construction that would render it constitutional. Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass‘n, 484 U.S. 383, 397 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The statutes cannot survive this inquiry. Contrary to the state‘s position, the statutеs reach the distribution of far more material than hardcore pornography or material that is obscene to minors, and they implicate a substantial amount of
I. THE SCOPE OF SECTIONS 054 AND 057
We begin with the scope of the statutes. In construing the reach of sections 054 and 057, our role is to “interpret the law as would the [Oregon] Supreme Court.” Planned Parenthood of Idaho, Inc. v. Wasden, 376 F.3d 908, 925 (9th Cir. 2004). This process is a different undertaking thаn construing a federal statute. Under Oregon rules of construction, we first consider text and context together. State v. Gaines, 206 P.3d 1042, 1050-51 (Or. 2009). We may also consider legislative history proffered by a party to the extent that it is useful. Id. If the scope of the statute remains ambiguous at that point in the analysis, we may then turn to “general maxims of statutory construction” to resolve our uncertainty. Id. The Oregon approach contrasts with the standard federal statutory construction, which looks first to the text and then, in the case of ambiguity, employs the canons of construction and, in light of the debate over its significance, may or may not involve a reference to lеgislative history. See Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 385 (2005); Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 568 (2005).
[1] On their face, the liability provisions of sections 054 and 057 cover a range of material. Section 054(1) criminalizes furnishing “sexually explicit material” to children. The definitions provision of the statute,
(a) Human masturbation or sexual intercourse;
(c) Penetration of the vagina or rectum by any object other than as part of a personal hygiene practice.
[2] Section 057(1) criminalizеs furnishing a minor or “us[ing]” a “visual representation or explicit verbal description or narrative account of sexual conduct” with a minor.8 “Sexual conduct” is defined as the same acts depicted in “sexually explicit material,” except it adds the “[t]ouching of the genitals, pubic areas or buttocks of the human male or female or of the breasts of the human female.”
The state chiefly seeks to limit the breadth of sections 054 and 057 based on the exemption from liability that appears in both provisions—that is, the exemption for materials whose sexual content “form[s] merely an incidental part of an otherwise nonoffending whole and serves some purpose other than titillation.” See
[3] This argument is unavailing. The text and context show that the statutes cover far more than what might qualify as hardcore pornography. The statutory text makes no mention of “hardcore pornography,” but rather refers to “sexually explicit material” and a “visual representation or explicit verbal description or narrative account of sexual conduct.”
[4] Similarly, the references to the “visual representation” and “explicit” verbal depictions of “sexual conduct” in section 057 are not synonymous with hardcore pornography. Section 057 reaches representations of activity, including the touching of breasts or buttocks, that are commonly seen or read outside of pornographic materials, hardcore or otherwise. Examples include the books listed above, along with the scenes of “sexual conduct” that appear in a work like Margaret Atwood‘s classic and frequently-taught novel, The Handmaid‘s Tale.
To be sure, the exemption constrains the statutes’ reach to a certain extent. It does not, however, limit their application to materials that fall outside constitutional protection. Again the text and context make this clear. As a preliminary matter, we note that the requirement of a non-“titillating” purpose refers to the explicit portion of the materials, and not the work
The state bases its “hardcore pornography” argument on a disjunctive reading of the exemption. In the state‘s view, a work may provide the basis for prosecution unless its explicit portions form “merely an incidental part of an otherwise nonoffending whole” or “serve some purpose other than titillation.” To put this the other way around, the exemption ostensibly protects a work from giving rise to liability unless its sexually explicit portions form more than an incidental portion of the work as a whole and solely intеnd to titillate. Thus, the state argues, the statutes only cover hardcore pornography.9
The problem, however, is that the statute does not say “or“—it says “and.” The two conditions for exemption from prosecution are plainly written in the conjunctive: a defendant must satisfy both conditions in order to avoid prosecution. Thus, a work might still give rise to liability if its sexually explicit portions solely intend to titillate but are only an inci-
The state makes two related arguments that we decline to embrace. First, the state relies heavily on State v. Maynard, a decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals construing the predecessor provision to the exemption. In Maynard, the court addressed a statute that criminalized furnishing minors any visual representation of “a person or portion of the human body that depicts nudity, sadomasochistic abuse, sexual conduct or sexual excitement.”
The state argues that Maynard requires construing sections 054 and 057 as limited to hardcore materials. Maynard, however, is of limited relevance and does not authorize reading the exemption in the state‘s expansive manner. In holding that the statute was aimed at the effects of exposure to hardcore pornography, Maynard did not construe the scope of the statute, but rather addressed the threshold issue, under Oregon free speech doctrine, of whether the statute “sufficiently identified the harmful effects it sought to prevent.” Id. at 1146.12 Indeed, upon turning to the scope of the material covered, the court went on to strike down the statute as overbroad. See id. at 1150-51.13 Thus, even assuming that, under Maynard, sections 054 and 057 similarly aim at effects the legislature deemed harmful, that does not determine what materials actually fall within their reach.
[5] As a second line of defense, the state cites legislative history that likewise reflects the legislature‘s concerns about minors’ exposure to hardcore pornography. In the state‘s
II. THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF EXPRESSIVE ACTIVITY
[6] Having delimited the reach of the statutes, we consider whether they criminalize a substantial amount of expressive activity.15 States may restrict the access of minors to obscene
In Ginsberg, the Court upheld a New York statute that criminalized the sale of “girlie magazines” to persons under the age of seventeen. 390 U.S. at 631-33. This statute incorporated the obscenity test previously articulated in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, namely, that a work is obscene if
(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value.
Five years after Ginsberg, the Court revisited the question of the appropriate obscenity standard for adults in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). The Court explicitly rejected the lack of “redeeming social value” prong set forth in Memoirs, holding that a state could criminalize the distribution of only those materials that “taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Id. at 24.16
[7] Ultimately, we need not decide this issue as the statutes are overbroad under both frameworks. Sections 054 and 057 sweep up material that, when taken as a whole, has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors and thus also has at least some “redeeming social value.” Because the statutes sweep beyond Miller‘s more lenient definition of obscenity, they necessarily extend beyond the Ginsberg formulation as well. In addition, sections 054 and 057 do not limit themselves to material that predominantly appeals to minors’ prurient interest. As a result, the statutes reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech. Because the statutes fail to satisfy the first two prongs of Miller/Ginsberg, we need not determine whether they also criminalize the furnishing of a significant amount of material that is not patently offensive.
A. SERIOUS VALUE
[8] Nothing in the language of the statutes, including the exemptions, takes the “serious value” of the work as a whole
[9] Similarly, section 057 sweeps up works like Forever, a coming-of-age novel written by Judy Blume. Forever includes explicit narrative accounts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, and genital-genital contact, which are all depictions of sexual conduct that may not be shared with minors, if the furnisher intends to arouse the minor or the furnisher. See
B. PRURIENT INTEREST
[10] The statutes also do not limit themselves to material that predominantly appeals to prurient interest. Such material is understood to trigger responses “over and beyond” normal sexual arousal. Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U.S. 491, 498-99 (1985). Section 054 defines sexually explicit material to consist of visuаl images of sexual intercourse as well as more specific subcategories. This definition is broad enough to reach a substantial amount of material that does not appeal to the prurient interest of a child under thirteen, but merely appeals to regular sexual interest.
[11] Section 057 reaches even farther than section 054, criminalizing the furnishing of written and visual depictions of sexual intercourse, along with depictions of the “[t]ouching of the genitals, pubic areas or buttocks of the human male or female or of the breasts of the human female,” to minors as old as seventeen.
The exemption does not cure this overbreadth as it focuses on titillation, and not prurient interest. Titillation and arousal are not synonymous with an abnormal or prurient sexual response as described in Brockett. To criminalize furnishing material solely intended to titillate the reader will certainly sweep up some material that appeals to the prurient interest of сhildren and minors, but it will also criminalize a broad swath of material that does not appeal to prurient interests.
[12] By restricting the dissemination and use of non-obscene material, the statutes trench on the First Amendment rights of minors and adults alike. On the one hand, the statutes
III. LIMITING CONSTRUCTION
[13] In light of the statutes’ facial overbreadth, the only question remaining is whether the statutes are susceptible to a reasonable limiting construction. In addressing this issue, we consider the limiting constructions proffered by the state, but do not “insert missing terms into the statute or adopt an interpretation precluded by the plain language of the ordinance.” Foti v. City of Menlo Park, 146 F.3d 629, 639 (9th Cir. 1998); see also Frink, 653 P.2d at 557-58. We may not “rewrite a state law to conform it to constitutional requirements.” Am. Booksellers, 484 U.S. at 397.
[14] The statutes sweep in the many works that include portions solely intended to titillate and arouse the reader but have serious value when taken as a whole. The statutes also exempt materials based on a non-titillating purpose, rather than a prurient one. To satisfy the Miller/Ginsberg requirements, we would have to insert language where we are not permitted to do so. See
Finally, although we apprеciate the state‘s argument that it has not, and will not, bring prosecutions against individuals or businesses like Powell‘s Books, this stand down approach cannot overcome the flaws in the statute. “The First Amendment protects against the Government; it does not leave us at the mercy of noblesse oblige.” Id. at 1591. We may not uphold the statutes merely because the state promises to treat them as properly limited.
[15] In sum, we conclude that because sections 054 and 057 on their face reach a significant amount of material that is not obscene as to minors, the statutes are unconstitutionally overbroad.
REVERSED.
