Overbreadth and Vagueness Doctrines

Here are some observations from Profs. Ides & May on these doctrines:

1. "The overbreadth doctrine creates a special First Amendment exception to the normal rules of standing, which bar a litigant from asserting the constitutional rights of third parties. The overbreadth doctrine allows an individual as to whom the application of the law may be constitutional to challenge the constitutionality of a law on the theory that as applied to other persons or under other circumstances the law violates the First Amendment. The essence of an overbreadth argument is that even though the challenged law may have some constitutional applications, its broad sweep encompasses protected speech activities and chills First Amendment rights of persons not before the Court to such an extent that the entire law must be struck down."

2. "The void for vagueness doctrine requires that all criminal statutes adequately describe the activities they prohibit. The doctrine is premised on two due process concerns--that persons potentially subject to the proscription be given fair notice of that which is proscribed and that officers charged with enforcing the law not be vested with arbitrary enforcement discretion. In the context of statutes that may tread on First Amendment rights, these due process concerns take on special significance. A vague statute that may include protected speech activity within its amorphous scope potentially runs afoul of the overbreadth doctrine by chilling protected speech. Under such circumstances, the overbreadth and void for vagueness arguments are essentially identical--the vagueness creates the overbreadth. Next, a vague statute that may be applied to speech activity and that vests enforcement officers with arbitrary authority to define the scope of the proscription runs a risk of permitting discriminatory enforcement on the basis of the favored or disfavored content of the speech. [What doctrine does this remind you of from our study of free exercise?] The vesting of such authority is itself unconstitutional."