Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition

Summary

Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, held that the CPPA's prohibitions on sexually explicit images that appear to depict minors and materials presented as child pornography were substantially overbroad under the First Amendment. The provisions reached protected expression that was neither obscene nor produced through the exploitation of actual children, and the asserted indirect harms did not justify their scope. The Court affirmed without deciding the vagueness challenge. Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment, emphasizing that future technological developments might justify narrowly tailored restrictions needed to enforce laws against actual child pornography. Justice O'Connor concurred in invalidating the presentation-based prohibition and the prohibition on youthful-adult pornography, but would have upheld the prohibition on wholly computer-generated child pornography; Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Scalia joined Part II of her opinion. Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented, joined by Justice Scalia except for the legislative-history discussion, and would have adopted narrowing constructions and upheld both provisions.