Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 48 to criminalize the commercial creation, sale, or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty. The statute does not address underlying acts harmful to animals, but only portrayals of such conduct. The question presented is whether the prohibition in the statute is consistent with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.
I
Section 48 establishes a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone who knowingly "creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty," if done "for commercial gain" in interstate or foreign commerce. § 48(a).
The legislative background of § 48 focused primarily on the interstate market for "crush videos." According to the House Committee Report on the bill, such videos feature the intentional torture and killing of helpless animals, including cats, dogs, monkeys, mice, and hamsters. H.R.Rep. No. 106-397, p. 2 (1999) (hereinafter H.R. Rep.). Crush videos often depict women slowly crushing animals to death "with their bare feet or while wearing high heeled shoes," sometimes while "talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter" over "[t]he cries and squeals of the animals, obviously in great pain." Ibid. Apparently these depictions "appeal to persons with a very specific sexual fetish who find them sexually arousing or otherwise exciting." Id., at 2-3. The acts depicted in crush videos are typically prohibited by the animal cruelty laws enacted by all 50 States and the District of Columbia. See Brief for United States 25, n. 7 (listing statutes). But crush videos rarely disclose the participants' identities, inhibiting prosecution of the underlying conduct. See H.R. Rep., at 3; accord, Brief for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 11.
This case, however, involves an application of § 48 to depictions of animal fighting. Dogfighting, for example, is unlawful in all 50 States and the District of Columbia, see Brief for United States 26, n. 8 (listing statutes), and has been restricted by federal law since 1976. Animal Welfare Act Amendments of 1976, § 17, 90 Stat. 421, 7 U.S.C. § 2156. Respondent Robert J. Stevens ran a business, "Dogs of Velvet and Steel," and an associated Web site, through which he sold videos of pit bulls engaging in dogfights and attacking other animals. Among these videos were Japan Pit Fights and Pick-A-Winna: A Pit Bull Documentary, which include contemporary footage of dogfights in Japan (where such conduct is allegedly legal) as well as footage of American dogfights from the 1960's and 1970's.
Stevens moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that § 48 is facially invalid under the First Amendment. The District Court denied the motion. It held that the depictions subject to § 48, like obscenity or child pornography, are categorically unprotected by the First Amendment. 2:04-cr-00051-ANB (WD Pa., Nov. 10, 2004), App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a-71a. It went on to hold that § 48 is not substantially overbroad, because the exceptions clause sufficiently narrows the statute to constitutional applications. Id., at 71a-75a. The jury convicted Stevens on all counts, and the District Court sentenced him to three concurrent sentences of 37 months' imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. App. 37.
The en banc Third Circuit, over a three-judge dissent, declared § 48 facially unconstitutional and vacated Stevens's conviction. 533 F.3d 218. The Court of Appeals first held that § 48 regulates speech that is protected by the First Amendment. The Court declined to recognize a new category of unprotected speech for depictions
The Court of Appeals then held that § 48 could not survive strict scrutiny as a content-based regulation of protected speech. Id., at 232. It found that the statute lacked a compelling government interest and was neither narrowly tailored to preventing animal cruelty nor the least restrictive means of doing so. Id., at 232-235. It therefore held § 48 facially invalid.
In an extended footnote, the Third Circuit noted that § 48 "might also be unconstitutionally overbroad," because it "potentially covers a great deal of constitutionally protected speech" and "sweeps [too] widely" to be limited only by prosecutorial discretion. Id., at 235, n. 16. But the Court of Appeals declined to rest its analysis on this ground.
We granted certiorari. 556 U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1984, 173 L.Ed.2d 1083 (2009).
II
The Government's primary submission is that § 48 necessarily complies with the Constitution because the banned depictions of animal cruelty, as a class, are categorically unprotected by the First Amendment. We disagree.
The First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." "[A]s a general matter, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564, 573, 122 S.Ct. 1700, 152 L.Ed.2d 771 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). Section 48 explicitly regulates expression based on content: The statute restricts "visual [and] auditory depiction[s]," such as photographs, videos, or sound recordings, depending on whether they depict conduct in which a living animal is intentionally harmed. As such, § 48 is "`presumptively invalid,' and the Government bears the burden to rebut that presumption." United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 817, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000) (quoting R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992); citation omitted).
"From 1791 to the present," however, the First Amendment has "permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas," and has never "include[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations." Id., at 382-383, 112 S.Ct. 2538. These "historic and traditional categories long familiar to the bar," Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 127, 112 S.Ct. 501, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment)—including obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 483, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), defamation, Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 254-255, 72 S.Ct. 725, 96 S.Ct. 919 (1952), fraud, Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 771, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976), incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-449, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (per curiam), and speech integral to criminal conduct, Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498, 69 S.Ct. 684, 93 S.Ct. 834 (1949)—are "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem." Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 S.Ct. 1031 (1942).
As the Government notes, the prohibition of animal cruelty itself has a long history in American law, starting with the early settlement of the Colonies. Reply Brief 12, n. 8; see, e.g., The Body of Liberties § 92 (Mass. Bay Colony 1641), reprinted in American Historical Documents 1000-1904, 43 Harvard Classics 66, 79 (C. Eliot ed. 1910) ("No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man's use"). But we are unaware of any similar tradition excluding depictions of animal cruelty from "the freedom of speech" codified in the First Amendment, and the Government points us to none.
The Government contends that "historical evidence" about the reach of the First Amendment is not "a necessary prerequisite for regulation today," Reply Brief 12, n. 8, and that categories of speech may be exempted from the First Amendment's protection without any long-settled tradition of subjecting that speech to regulation. Instead, the Government points to Congress's "`legislative judgment that . . . depictions of animals being intentionally tortured and killed [are] of such minimal redeeming value as to render [them] unworthy of First Amendment protection,'" Brief for United States 23 (quoting 533 F.3d, at 243 (Cowen, J., dissenting)), and asks the Court to uphold the ban on the same basis. The Government thus proposes that a claim of categorical exclusion should be considered under a simple balancing test: "Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs." Brief for United States 8; see also id., at 12.
As a free-floating test for First Amendment coverage, that sentence is startling and dangerous. The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it. The Constitution is not a document "prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 178, 2 S.Ct. 60 (1803).
To be fair to the Government, its view did not emerge from a vacuum. As the Government correctly notes, this Court has often described historically unprotected categories of speech as being "`of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.'" R.A.V., supra, at 383, 112 S.Ct. 2538 (quoting Chaplinsky, supra, at 572, 62 S.Ct. 766). In New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982), we noted that within
But such descriptions are just that— descriptive. They do not set forth a test that may be applied as a general matter to permit the Government to imprison any speaker so long as his speech is deemed valueless or unnecessary, or so long as an ad hoc calculus of costs and benefits tilts in a statute's favor.
When we have identified categories of speech as fully outside the protection of the First Amendment, it has not been on the basis of a simple cost-benefit analysis. In Ferber, for example, we classified child pornography as such a category, 458 U.S., at 763, 102 S.Ct. 3348. We noted that the State of New York had a compelling interest in protecting children from abuse, and that the value of using children in these works (as opposed to simulated conduct or adult actors) was de minimis. Id., at 756-757, 762, 102 S.Ct. 3348. But our decision did not rest on this "balance of competing interests" alone. Id., at 764, 102 S.Ct. 3348. We made clear that Ferber presented a special case: The market for child pornography was "intrinsically related" to the underlying abuse, and was therefore "an integral part of the production of such materials, an activity illegal throughout the Nation." Id., at 759, 761, 102 S.Ct. 3348. As we noted, "`[i]t rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute.'" Id., at 761-762, 102 S.Ct. 3348 (quoting Giboney, supra, at 498, 69 S.Ct. 684). Ferber thus grounded its analysis in a previously recognized, long-established category of unprotected speech, and our subsequent decisions have shared this understanding. See Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 110, 110 S.Ct. 1691, 109 L.Ed.2d 98 (1990) (describing Ferber as finding "persuasive" the argument that the advertising and sale of child pornography was "an integral part" of its unlawful production (internal quotation marks omitted)); Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 249-250, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002) (noting that distribution and sale "were intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children," giving the speech at issue "a proximate link to the crime from which it came" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Our decisions in Ferber and other cases cannot be taken as establishing a freewheeling authority to declare new categories of speech outside the scope of the First Amendment. Maybe there are some categories of speech that have been historically unprotected, but have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in our case law. But if so, there is no evidence that "depictions of animal cruelty" is among them. We need not foreclose the future recognition of such additional categories to reject the Government's highly manipulable balancing test as a means of identifying them.
III
Because we decline to carve out from the First Amendment any novel exception for § 48, we review Stevens's First Amendment challenge under our existing doctrine.
A
Stevens challenged § 48 on its face, arguing that any conviction secured under
To succeed in a typical facial attack, Stevens would have to establish "that no set of circumstances exists under which [§ 48] would be valid," United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987), or that the statute lacks any "plainly legitimate sweep," Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 740, n. 7, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgments) (internal quotation marks omitted). Which standard applies in a typical case is a matter of dispute that we need not and do not address, and neither Salerno nor Glucksberg is a speech case. Here the Government asserts that Stevens cannot prevail because § 48 is plainly legitimate as applied to crush videos and animal fighting depictions. Deciding this case through a traditional facial analysis would require us to resolve whether these applications of § 48 are in fact consistent with the Constitution.
In the First Amendment context, however, this Court recognizes "a second type of facial challenge," whereby a law may be invalidated as overbroad if "a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 449, n. 6, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). Stevens argues that § 48 applies to common depictions of ordinary and lawful activities, and that these depictions constitute the vast majority of materials subject to the statute. Brief for Respondent 22-25. The Government makes no effort to defend such a broad ban as constitutional. Instead, the Government's entire defense of § 48 rests on interpreting the statute as narrowly limited to specific types of "extreme" material. Brief for United States 8. As the parties have presented the issue, therefore, the constitutionality of § 48 hinges on how broadly it is construed. It is to that question that we now turn.
B
As we explained two Terms ago, "[t]he first step in overbreadth analysis is to construe the challenged statute; it is impossible to determine whether a statute reaches too far without first knowing what the statute covers." United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 293, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008). Because
We read § 48 to create a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth. To begin with, the text of the statute's ban on a "depiction of animal cruelty" nowhere requires that the depicted conduct be cruel. That text applies to "any . . . depiction" in which "a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed." § 48(c)(1). "[M]aimed, mutilated, [and] tortured" convey cruelty, but "wounded" or "killed" do not suggest any such limitation.
The Government contends that the terms in the definition should be read to require the additional element of "accompanying acts of cruelty." Reply Brief 6; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 17-19. (The dissent hinges on the same assumption. See post, at ___, ___.) The Government bases this argument on the definiendum, "depiction of animal cruelty," cf. Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 11, 125 S.Ct. 377, 160 L.Ed.2d 271 (2004), and on "`the commonsense canon of noscitur a sociis.'" Reply Brief 7 (quoting Williams, 553 U.S., at 294, 128 S.Ct. 1830). As that canon recognizes, an ambiguous term may be "given more precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated." Ibid. Likewise, an unclear definitional phrase may take meaning from the term to be defined, see Leocal, supra, at 11, 125 S.Ct. 377 (interpreting a "`substantial risk'" of the "us[e]" of "physical force" as part of the definition of "`crime of violence'").
But the phrase "wounded . . . or killed" at issue here contains little ambiguity. The Government's opening brief properly applies the ordinary meaning of these words, stating for example that to "`kill' is `to deprive of life.'" Brief for United States 14 (quoting Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1242 (1993)). We agree that "wounded" and "killed" should be read according to their ordinary meaning. Cf. Engine Mfrs. Assn. v. South Coast Air Quality Management Dist., 541 U.S. 246, 252, 124 S.Ct. 1756, 158 L.Ed.2d 529 (2004). Nothing about that meaning requires cruelty.
While not requiring cruelty, § 48 does require that the depicted conduct be "illegal." But this requirement does not limit § 48 along the lines the Government suggests. There are myriad federal and state laws concerning the proper treatment of animals, but many of them are not designed to guard against animal cruelty. Protections of endangered species, for example, restrict even the humane "wound[ing] or kill[ing]" of "living animal[s]." § 48(c)(1). Livestock regulations are often designed to protect the health of human beings, and hunting and fishing rules (seasons, licensure, bag limits, weight requirements) can be designed to raise revenue, preserve animal populations, or prevent accidents. The text of § 48(c) draws no distinction based on the reason the intentional killing of an animal is made illegal, and includes, for example, the humane slaughter of a stolen cow.
What is more, the application of § 48 to depictions of illegal conduct extends to conduct that is illegal in only a single
In the District of Columbia, for example, all hunting is unlawful. D.C. Munic. Regs., tit. 19, § 1560 (2009). Other jurisdictions permit or encourage hunting, and there is an enormous national market for hunting-related depictions in which a living animal is intentionally killed. Hunting periodicals have circulations in the hundreds of thousands or millions, see Mediaweek, Sept. 29, 2008, p. 28, and hunting television programs, videos, and Web sites are equally popular, see Brief for Professional Outdoor Media Association et al. as Amici Curiae 9-10. The demand for hunting depictions exceeds the estimated demand for crush videos or animal fighting depictions by several orders of magnitude. Compare ibid. and Brief for National Rifle Association of America, Inc., as Amicus Curiae 12 (hereinafter NRA Brief) (estimating that hunting magazines alone account for $135 million in annual retail sales) with Brief for United States 43-44, 46 (suggesting $1 million in crush video sales per year, and noting that Stevens earned $57,000 from his videos). Nonetheless, because the statute allows each jurisdiction to export its laws to the rest of the country, § 48(a) extends to any magazine or video depicting lawful hunting, so long as that depiction is sold within the Nation's Capital.
Those seeking to comply with the law thus face a bewildering maze of regulations from at least 56 separate jurisdictions. Some States permit hunting with crossbows, Ga.Code Ann. § 27-3-4(1) (2007); Va.Code Ann. § 29.1-519(A)(6) (Lexis 2008 Cum.Supp.), while others forbid it, Ore. Admin. Reg. 635-065-0725 (2009), or restrict it only to the disabled, N.Y. Envir. Conserv. Law Ann. § 11-0901(16) (West 2005). Missouri allows the "canned" hunting of ungulates held in captivity, Mo.Code Regs. Ann., tit. 3, 10-9.560(1), but Montana restricts such hunting to certain bird species, Mont. Admin. Rule 12.6.1202(1) (2007). The sharp-tailed grouse may be hunted in Idaho, but not in Washington. Compare Idaho Admin. Code § 13.01.09.606 (2009) with Wash. Admin. Code § 232-28-342 (2009).
The disagreements among the States— and the "commonwealth[s], territor[ies], or possession[s] of the United States," 18 U.S.C. § 48(c)(2)—extend well beyond hunting. State agricultural regulations permit different methods of livestock slaughter in different places or as applied to different animals. Compare, e.g., Fla. Stat. § 828.23(5) (2007) (excluding poultry from humane slaughter requirements) with Cal. Food & Agric. Code Ann. § 19501(b) (West 2001) (including some poultry). California has recently banned cutting or "docking" the tails of dairy cattle, which other States permit. 2009 Cal. Legis. Serv. Ch. 344 (S.B.135) (West). Even cockfighting, long considered immoral in much of America, see Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 575, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment), is legal in Puerto Rico, see 15 Laws P.R. Ann. § 301 (Supp.
C
The only thing standing between defendants who sell such depictions and five years in federal prison—other than the mercy of a prosecutor—is the statute's exceptions clause. Subsection (b) exempts from prohibition "any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." The Government argues that this clause substantially narrows the statute's reach: News reports about animal cruelty have "journalistic" value; pictures of bullfights in Spain have "historical" value; and instructional hunting videos have "educational" value. Reply Brief 6. Thus, the Government argues, § 48 reaches only crush videos, depictions of animal fighting (other than Spanish bullfighting, see Brief for United States 47-48), and perhaps other depictions of "extreme acts of animal cruelty." Id., at 41.
The Government's attempt to narrow the statutory ban, however, requires an unrealistically broad reading of the exceptions clause. As the Government reads the clause, any material with "redeeming societal value," id., at 9, 16, 23, "`at least some minimal value,'" Reply Brief 6 (quoting H.R. Rep., at 4), or anything more than "scant social value," Reply Brief 11, is excluded under § 48(b). But the text says "serious" value, and "serious" should be taken seriously. We decline the Government's invitation—advanced for the first time in this Court—to regard as "serious" anything that is not "scant." (Or, as the dissent puts it, "`trifling.'" Post, at ___.) As the Government recognized below, "serious" ordinarily means a good bit more. The District Court's jury instructions required value that is "significant and of great import," App. 132, and the Government defended these instructions as properly relying on "a commonly accepted meaning of the word `serious,'" Brief for United States in No. 05-2497(CA3), p. 50.
Quite apart from the requirement of "serious" value in § 48(b), the excepted speech must also fall within one of the enumerated categories. Much speech does not. Most hunting videos, for example, are not obviously instructional in nature, except in the sense that all life is a lesson. According to Safari Club International and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, many popular videos "have primarily entertainment value" and are designed to "entertai[n] the viewer, marke[t] hunting equipment, or increas[e] the hunting community." Brief for Safari Club International et al. as Amici Curiae 12. The National Rifle Association agrees that "much of the content of hunting media . . . is merely recreational in nature." NRA Brief 28. The Government offers no principled explanation why these depictions of hunting or depictions of Spanish bullfights would be inherently valuable while those of Japanese dogfights are not. The dissent contends that hunting depictions must have serious value because hunting has serious value, in a way that dogfights presumably do not. Post, at ___-___. But § 48(b) addresses the value of the depictions, not of the underlying activity. There is simply no adequate reading of the exceptions clause that results in the statute's banning only the depictions the Government would like to ban.
In Miller we held that "serious" value shields depictions of sex from regulation as obscenity. 413 U.S., at 24-25, 93 S.Ct. 2607. Limiting Miller's exception to "serious" value ensured that "`[a] quotation from Voltaire in the flyleaf of a book [would] not constitutionally redeem an otherwise obscene publication.'" Id., at 25, n. 7, 93 S.Ct. 2607 (quoting Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U.S. 229, 231, 92 S.Ct. 2245, 33 L.Ed.2d 312 (1972) (per curiam)). We did not, however, determine that serious value could be used as a general precondition to protecting other types of speech in the first place. Most of what we say to one another lacks "religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value" (let alone serious value), but it is still sheltered from government regulation. Even "`[w]holly neutral futilities . . . come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons.'" Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 25, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971) (quoting Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 528, 68 S.Ct. 665, 92 S.Ct. 840 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); alteration in original).
Thus, the protection of the First Amendment presumptively extends to many forms of speech that do not qualify for the serious-value exception of § 48(b), but nonetheless fall within the broad reach of § 48(c).
D
Not to worry, the Government says: The Executive Branch construes § 48 to reach only "extreme" cruelty, Brief for United States 8, and it "neither has brought nor will bring a prosecution for anything less," Reply Brief 6-7. The Government hits this theme hard, invoking its prosecutorial discretion several times. See id., at 6-7, 10, and n. 6, 19, 22. But the First Amendment protects against the Government; it does not leave us at the mercy of noblesse oblige. We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government promised to use it responsibly. Cf. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U.S. 457, 473, 121 S.Ct. 903, 149 L.Ed.2d 1 (2001).
This prosecution is itself evidence of the danger in putting faith in government representations of prosecutorial restraint. When this legislation was enacted, the Executive Branch announced that it would interpret § 48 as covering only depictions "of wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex." See Statement by President William J. Clinton upon Signing H.R. 1887, 34 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 2557 (Dec. 9, 1999). No one suggests that the videos in this case fit that description. The Government's assurance that it will apply § 48 far more restrictively than its language provides is pertinent only as an implicit acknowledgment of the potential constitutional problems with a more natural reading.
Nor can we rely upon the canon of construction that "ambiguous statutory language [should] be construed to avoid serious constitutional doubts." FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. ___, ___, 129 S.Ct. 1800, 1811, 173 L.Ed.2d 738 (2009). "[T]his Court may
* * *
Our construction of § 48 decides the constitutional question; the Government makes no effort to defend the constitutionality of § 48 as applied beyond crush videos and depictions of animal fighting. It argues that those particular depictions are intrinsically related to criminal conduct or are analogous to obscenity (if not themselves obscene), and that the ban on such speech is narrowly tailored to reinforce restrictions on the underlying conduct, prevent additional crime arising from the depictions, or safeguard public mores. But the Government nowhere attempts to extend these arguments to depictions of any other activities—depictions that are presumptively protected by the First Amendment but that remain subject to the criminal sanctions of § 48.
Nor does the Government seriously contest that the presumptively impermissible applications of § 48 (properly construed) far outnumber any permissible ones. However "growing" and "lucrative" the markets for crush videos and dogfighting depictions might be, see Brief for United States 43, 46 (internal quotation marks omitted), they are dwarfed by the market for other depictions, such as hunting magazines and videos, that we have determined to be within the scope of § 48. See supra, at ___-___. We therefore need not and do not decide whether a statute limited to crush videos or other depictions of extreme animal cruelty would be constitutional. We hold only that § 48 is not so limited but is instead substantially overbroad, and therefore invalid under the First Amendment.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice ALITO, dissenting.
The Court strikes down in its entirety a valuable statute, 18 U.S.C. § 48, that was enacted not to suppress speech, but to prevent horrific acts of animal cruelty—in particular, the creation and commercial exploitation of "crush videos," a form of depraved entertainment that has no social value. The Court's approach, which has the practical effect of legalizing the sale of such videos and is thus likely to spur a resumption of their production, is unwarranted. Respondent was convicted under § 48 for selling videos depicting dogfights. On appeal, he argued, among other things, that § 48 is unconstitutional as applied to the facts of this case, and he highlighted features of those videos that might distinguish them from other dogfight videos brought to our attention.
Instead of applying the doctrine of overbreadth, I would vacate the decision below and instruct the Court of Appeals on remand to decide whether the videos that respondent sold are constitutionally protected. If the question of overbreadth is to be decided, however, I do not think the present record supports the Court's conclusion that § 48 bans a substantial quantity of protected speech.
I
A party seeking to challenge the constitutionality of a statute generally must show that the statute violates the party's own rights. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 767, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982). The First Amendment overbreadth doctrine carves out a narrow exception to that general rule. See id., at 768, 102 S.Ct. 3348; Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 611-612, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). Because an overly broad law may deter constitutionally protected speech, the overbreadth doctrine allows a party to whom the law may constitutionally be applied to challenge the statute on the ground that it violates the First Amendment rights of others. See, e.g., Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 483, 109 S.Ct. 3028, 106 L.Ed.2d 388 (1989) ("Ordinarily, the principal advantage of the overbreadth doctrine for a litigant is that it enables him to benefit from the statute's unlawful application to someone else"); see also Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 462, n. 20, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978) (describing the doctrine as one "under which a person may challenge a statute that infringes protected speech even if the statute constitutionally might be applied to him").
The "strong medicine" of overbreadth invalidation need not and generally should not be administered when the statute under attack is unconstitutional as applied to the challenger before the court. As we said in Fox, supra, at 484-485, 109 S.Ct. 3028, "[i]t is not the usual judicial practice,. . . nor do we consider it generally desirable, to proceed to an overbreadth issue unnecessarily—that is, before it is determined that the statute would be valid as
I see no reason to depart here from the generally preferred procedure of considering the question of overbreadth only as a last resort.
II
The overbreadth doctrine "strike[s] a balance between competing social costs." Williams, 553 U.S., at 292, 128 S.Ct. 1830. Specifically, the doctrine seeks to balance the "harmful effects" of "invalidating a law that in some of its applications is perfectly constitutional" against the possibility that "the threat of enforcement of an overbroad law [will] dete[r] people from engaging in constitutionally protected speech." Ibid. "In order to maintain an appropriate balance, we have vigorously enforced the requirement that a statute's overbreadth be substantial, not only in an absolute sense, but also relative to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." Ibid.
In determining whether a statute's overbreadth is substantial, we consider a statute's application to real-world conduct, not fanciful hypotheticals. See, e.g., id., at 301-302, 128 S.Ct. 1830; see also Ferber, supra, at 773, 102 S.Ct. 3348; Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 466-467, 107 S.Ct. 2502, 96 L.Ed.2d 398 (1987). Accordingly, we have repeatedly emphasized that an overbreadth claimant bears the burden of demonstrating, "from the text of [the law] and from actual fact," that substantial overbreadth exists. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 122, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003) (quoting New York State Club Assn., supra, at 14, 108 S.Ct. 2225; emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted; alteration in original). Similarly, "there must be a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court for it to be facially challenged on overbreadth grounds." Members of City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 801, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984) (emphasis added).
III
In holding that § 48 violates the overbreadth rule, the Court declines to decide whether, as the Government maintains, § 48 is constitutional as applied to two broad categories of depictions that exist in the real world: crush videos and depictions of deadly animal fights. See ante, at ___, ___. Instead, the Court tacitly assumes for the sake of argument that § 48 is valid as applied to these depictions, but the Court concludes that § 48 reaches too much protected speech to survive. The Court relies primarily on depictions of hunters killing or wounding game and depictions of animals being slaughtered for food. I address the Court's examples below.
A
I turn first to depictions of hunting. As the Court notes, photographs and videos of hunters shooting game are common. See ante, at ___-___. But hunting is legal in all 50 States, and § 48 applies only to a
Straining to find overbreadth, the Court suggests that § 48 prohibits the sale or possession in the District of Columbia of any depiction of hunting because the District — undoubtedly because of its urban character—does not permit hunting within its boundaries. Ante, at ___. The Court also suggests that, because some States prohibit a particular type of hunting (e.g., hunting with a crossbow or "canned" hunting) or the hunting of a particular animal (e.g., the "sharp-tailed grouse"), § 48 makes it illegal for persons in such States to sell or possess for sale a depiction of hunting that was perfectly legal in the State in which the hunting took place. See ante, at ___-___.
The Court's interpretation is seriously flawed. "When a federal court is dealing with a federal statute challenged as overbroad, it should, of course, construe the statute to avoid constitutional problems, if the statute is subject to such a limiting construction." Ferber, 458 U.S., at 769, n. 24, 102 S.Ct. 3348. See also Williams, supra, at 307, 128 S.Ct. 1830 (STEVENS, J., concurring) ("[T]o the extent the statutory text alone is unclear, our duty to avoid constitutional objections makes it especially appropriate to look beyond the text in order to ascertain the intent of its drafters").
Applying this canon, I would hold that § 48 does not apply to depictions of hunting. First, because § 48 targets depictions of "animal cruelty," I would interpret that term to apply only to depictions involving acts of animal cruelty as defined by applicable state or federal law, not to depictions of acts that happen to be illegal for reasons having nothing to do with the prevention of animal cruelty. See ante, at ___-___ (interpreting "[t]he text of § 48(c)" to ban a depiction of "the humane slaughter of a stolen cow"). Virtually all state laws prohibiting animal cruelty either expressly define the term "animal" to exclude wildlife or else specifically exempt lawful hunting activities,
Second, even if the hunting of wild animals were otherwise covered by § 48(a), I would hold that hunting depictions fall within the exception in § 48(b) for depictions that have "serious" (i.e., not "trifling"
I do not have the slightest doubt that Congress, in enacting § 48, had no intention of restricting the creation, sale, or possession of depictions of hunting. Proponents of the law made this point clearly. See H.R.Rep. No. 106-397, p. 8 (1999) (hereinafter H.R. Rep.) ("[D]epictions of ordinary hunting and fishing activities do not fall within the scope of the statute"); 145 Cong. Rec. 25894 (Oct. 19, 1999) (Rep.McCollum) ("[T]he sale of depictions of legal activities, such as hunting and fishing, would not be illegal under this bill"); id., at 25895 (Rep.Smith) ("[L]et us be clear as to what this legislation will not do. It will in no way prohibit hunting, fishing, or wildlife videos"). Indeed, even opponents acknowledged that § 48 was not intended to reach ordinary hunting depictions. See ibid. (Rep.Scott); id., at 25897 (Rep.Paul).
For these reasons, I am convinced that § 48 has no application to depictions of hunting. But even if § 48 did impermissibly reach the sale or possession of depictions of hunting in a few unusual situations (for example, the sale in Oregon of a depiction of hunting with a crossbow in Virginia or the sale in Washington State of the hunting of a sharp-tailed grouse in Idaho, see ante, at ___), those isolated applications would hardly show that § 48 bans a substantial amount of protected speech.
B
Although the Court's overbreadth analysis rests primarily on the proposition that § 48 substantially restricts the sale and possession of hunting depictions, the Court cites a few additional examples, including depictions of methods of slaughter and the docking of the tails of dairy cows. See ante, at ___-___.
Such examples do not show that the statute is substantially overbroad, for two
Second, nothing in the record suggests that any one has ever created, sold, or possessed for sale a depiction of the slaughter of food animals or of the docking of the tails of dairy cows that would not easily qualify under the exception set out in § 48(b). Depictions created to show proper methods of slaughter or tail-docking would presumably have serious "educational" value, and depictions created to focus attention on methods thought to be inhumane or otherwise objectionable would presumably have either serious "educational" or "journalistic" value or both. In short, the Court's examples of depictions involving the docking of tails and humane slaughter do not show that § 48 suffers from any overbreadth, much less substantial overbreadth.
The Court notes, finally, that cockfighting, which is illegal in all States, is still legal in Puerto Rico, ante, at ___, and I take the Court's point to be that it would be impermissible to ban the creation, sale, or possession in Puerto Rico of a depiction of a cockfight that was legally staged in Puerto Rico.
In sum, we have a duty to interpret § 48 so as to avoid serious constitutional concerns, and § 48 may reasonably be construed not to reach almost all, if not all, of the depictions that the Court finds constitutionally protected. Thus, § 48 does not appear to have a large number of unconstitutional applications. Invalidation for overbreadth is appropriate only if the challenged statute suffers from substantial overbreadth—judged not just in absolute terms, but in relation to the statute's "plainly legitimate sweep." Williams, 553 U.S., at 292, 128 S.Ct. 1830. As I explain in the following Part, § 48 has a substantial core of constitutionally permissible applications.
IV
A
1
As the Court of Appeals recognized, "the primary conduct that Congress
It is undisputed that the conduct depicted in crush videos may constitutionally be prohibited. All 50 States and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes prohibiting animal cruelty. See 533 F.3d, at 223, and n. 4 (citing statutes); H.R. Rep., at 3. But before the enactment of § 48, the underlying conduct depicted in crush videos was nearly impossible to prosecute. These videos, which "often appeal to persons with a very specific sexual fetish," id., at 2, were made in secret, generally without a live audience, and "the faces of the women inflicting the torture in the material often were not shown, nor could the location of the place where the cruelty was being inflicted or the date of the activity be ascertained from the depiction." Id., at 3. Thus, law enforcement authorities often were not able to identify the parties responsible for the torture. See Punishing Depictions of Animal Cruelty and the Federal Prisoner Health Care Co-Payment Act of 1999: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 106th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 1 (1999) (hereinafter Hearing on Depictions of Animal Cruelty). In the rare instances in which it was possible to identify and find the perpetrators, they "often were able to successfully assert as a defense that the State could not prove its jurisdiction over the place where the act occurred or that the actions depicted took place within the time specified in the State statute of limitations." H.R. Rep., at 3; see also 145 Cong. Rec. 25896 (Rep.Gallegly) ("[I]t is the prosecutors from around this country, Federal prosecutors as well as State prosecutors, that have made an appeal to us for this"); Hearing on Depictions of Animal Cruelty 21 ("If the production of the video is not discovered during the actual filming, then prosecution for the offense is virtually impossible without a cooperative eyewitness to the filming or an undercover police operation"); id., at 34-35 (discussing example of case in which state prosecutor "had the defendant telling us he produced these videos," but where prosecution was not possible because the State could not prove where or when the tape was made).
In light of the practical problems thwarting the prosecution of the creators of crush videos under state animal cruelty laws, Congress concluded that the only effective way of stopping the underlying criminal conduct was to prohibit the commercial exploitation of the videos of that conduct. And Congress' strategy appears to have been vindicated. We are told that "[b]y 2007, sponsors of § 48 declared the crush video industry dead. Even overseas Websites shut down in the wake of § 48. Now, after the Third Circuit's decision [facially invalidating the statute], crush videos are already back online." Humane Society Brief 5 (citations omitted).
2
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it most certainly does not protect violent criminal conduct, even if
The most relevant of our prior decisions is Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113, which concerned child pornography. The Court there held that child pornography is not protected speech, and I believe that Ferber's reasoning dictates a similar conclusion here.
In Ferber, an important factor—I would say the most important factor—was that child pornography involves the commission of a crime that inflicts severe personal injury to the "children who are made to engage in sexual conduct for commercial purposes.'" Id., at 753, 102 S.Ct. 3348 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Ferber Court repeatedly described the production of child pornography as child "abuse," "molestation," or "exploitation." See, e.g., id., at 749, 102 S.Ct. 3348 ("In recent years, the exploitive use of children in the production of pornography has become a serious national problem"); id., at 758, n. 9, 102 S.Ct. 3348 ("Sexual molestation by adults is often involved in the production of child sexual performances"). As later noted in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 249, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002), in Ferber "[t]he production of the work, not its content, was the target of the statute." See also 535 U.S., at 250, 122 S.Ct. 1389 (Ferber involved "speech that itself is the record of sexual abuse").
Second, Ferber emphasized the fact that these underlying crimes could not be effectively combated without targeting the distribution of child pornography. As the Court put it, "the distribution network for child pornography must be closed if the production of material which requires the sexual exploitation of children is to be effectively controlled." 458 U.S., at 759, 102 S.Ct. 3348. The Court added:
See also id., at 761, 102 S.Ct. 3348 ("The advertising and selling of child pornography provide an economic motive for and are thus an integral part of the production of such materials").
Third, the Ferber Court noted that the value of child pornography "is exceedingly modest, if not de minimis," and that any such value was "overwhelmingly outweigh[ed]" by "the evil to be restricted." Id., at 762-763, 102 S.Ct. 3348.
All three of these characteristics are shared by § 48, as applied to crush videos. First, the conduct depicted in crush videos is criminal in every State and the District of Columbia. Thus, any crush video made in this country records the actual commission of a criminal act that inflicts severe physical injury and excruciating pain and ultimately results in death. Those who
Second, the criminal acts shown in crush videos cannot be prevented without targeting the conduct prohibited by § 48 — the creation, sale, and possession for sale of depictions of animal torture with the intention of realizing a commercial profit. The evidence presented to Congress posed a stark choice: Either ban the commercial exploitation of crush videos or tolerate a continuation of the criminal acts that they record. Faced with this evidence, Congress reasonably chose to target the lucrative crush video market.
Finally, the harm caused by the underlying crimes vastly outweighs any minimal value that the depictions might conceivably be thought to possess. Section 48 reaches only the actual recording of acts of animal torture; the statute does not apply to verbal descriptions or to simulations. And, unlike the child pornography statute in Ferber or its federal counterpart, 18 U.S.C. § 2252, § 48(b) provides an exception for depictions having any "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value."
It must be acknowledged that § 48 differs from a child pornography law in an important respect: preventing the abuse of children is certainly much more important than preventing the torture of the animals used in crush videos. It was largely for this reason that the Court of Appeals concluded that Ferber did not support the constitutionality of § 48. 533 F.3d, at 228 ("Preventing cruelty to animals, although an exceedingly worthy goal, simply does not implicate interests of the same magnitude as protecting children from physical and psychological harm"). But while protecting children is unquestionably more important than protecting animals, the Government also has a compelling interest in preventing the torture depicted in crush videos.
The animals used in crush videos are living creatures that experience excruciating pain. Our society has long banned such cruelty, which is illegal throughout the country. In Ferber, the Court noted that "virtually all of the States and the United States have passed legislation proscribing the production of or otherwise combating `child pornography,'" and the Court declined to "second-guess [that] legislative judgment."
Section 48's ban on trafficking in crush videos also helps to enforce the criminal
In short, Ferber is the case that sheds the most light on the constitutionality of Congress' effort to halt the production of crush videos. Applying the principles set forth in Ferber, I would hold that crush videos are not protected by the First Amendment.
B
Application of the Ferber framework also supports the constitutionality of § 48 as applied to depictions of brutal animal fights. (For convenience, I will focus on videos of dogfights, which appear to be the most common type of animal fight videos.)
First, such depictions, like crush videos, record the actual commission of a crime involving deadly violence. Dogfights are illegal in every State and the District of Columbia, Brief for United States 26-27, and n. 8 (citing statutes), and under federal law constitute a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to five years, 7 U.S.C. § 2156 et seq. (2006 ed. and Supp. II), 18 U.S.C. § 49 (2006 ed., Supp. II).
Second, Congress had an ample basis for concluding that the crimes depicted in these videos cannot be effectively controlled without targeting the videos. Like crush videos and child pornography, dogfight videos are very often produced as part of a "low-profile, clandestine industry," and "the need to market the resulting products requires a visible apparatus of distribution." Ferber, 458 U.S., at 760, 102 S.Ct. 3348. In such circumstances, Congress had reasonable grounds for concluding that it would be "difficult, if not impossible, to halt" the underlying exploitation of dogs by pursuing only those who stage the fights. Id., at 759-760, 102 S.Ct. 3348; see 533 F.3d, at 246 (Cowen, J., dissenting) (citing evidence establishing "the existence of a lucrative market for depictions of animal cruelty," including videos of dogfights, "which in turn provides a powerful incentive to individuals to create [such] videos").
The commercial trade in videos of dogfights is "an integral part of the production of such materials," Ferber, supra, at 761, 102 S.Ct. 3348. As the Humane Society explains, "[v]ideotapes memorializing dogfights are integral to the success of this criminal industry" for a variety of reasons. Humane Society Brief 5. For one thing, some dogfighting videos are made "solely for the purpose of selling the video (and not for a live audience)." Id., at 9. In addition, those who stage dogfights profit not just from the sale of the videos themselves, but from the gambling revenue they take in from the fights; the videos "encourage [such] gambling activity because they allow those reluctant to attend actual fights for fear of prosecution to still bet on the outcome." Ibid.; accord, Brief for Center on the Administration of Criminal Law as Amicus Curiae 12 ("Selling videos of dogfights effectively abets the underlying crimes by providing a market for dogfighting while allowing actual dogfights to remain underground"); ibid. ("These videos are part of a `lucrative market' where videos are produced by a `bare-boned, clandestine staff' in order to permit
Third, depictions of dogfights that fall within § 48's reach have by definition no appreciable social value. As noted, § 48(b) exempts depictions having any appreciable social value, and thus the mere inclusion of a depiction of a live fight in a larger work that aims at communicating an idea or a message with a modicum of social value would not run afoul of the statute.
Finally, the harm caused by the underlying criminal acts greatly outweighs any trifling value that the depictions might be thought to possess. As the Humane Society explains:
For these dogs, unlike the animals killed in crush videos, the suffering lasts for years rather than minutes. As with crush videos, moreover, the statutory ban on commerce in dogfighting videos is also supported by compelling governmental interests in effectively enforcing the Nation's criminal laws and preventing criminals from profiting from their illegal activities. See Ferber, supra, at 757-758, 102 S.Ct. 3348; Simon & Schuster, 502 U.S., at 119, 112 S.Ct. 501.
In sum, § 48 may validly be applied to at least two broad real-world categories of expression covered by the statute: crush videos and dogfighting videos. Thus, the statute has a substantial core of constitutionally permissible applications. Moreover, for the reasons set forth above, the record does not show that § 48, properly interpreted, bans a substantial amount of protected speech in absolute terms. A fortiori, respondent has not met his burden of demonstrating that any impermissible applications of the statute are "substantial" in relation to its "plainly legitimate sweep." Williams, 553 U.S., at 292, 128 S.Ct. 1830. Accordingly, I would reject respondent's claim that § 48 is facially unconstitutional under the overbreadth doctrine.
* * *
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
APPENDIX
As the following chart makes clear, virtually all state laws prohibiting animal cruelty either expressly define the term "animal" to exclude wildlife or else specifically exempt lawful hunting activities.
FootNotes
"§ 48. Depiction of animal cruelty
"(a) CREATION, SALE, OR POSSESSION.—Whoever knowingly creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty with the intention of placing that depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
"(b) EXCEPTION.—Subsection (a) does not apply to any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.
"(c) DEFINITIONS.—In this section—
"(1) the term `depiction of animal cruelty' means any visual or auditory depiction, including any photograph, motion-picture film, video recording, electronic image, or sound recording of conduct in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed, if such conduct is illegal under Federal law or the law of the State in which the creation, sale, or possession takes place, regardless of whether the maiming, mutilation, torture, wounding, or killing took place in the State; and
"(2) the term `State' means each of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and any other commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States."
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