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No. 10319824
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice v. Kristen Mayes
No. 10319824 · Decided January 23, 2025
No. 10319824·Ninth Circuit · 2025·
FlawFinder last updated this page Apr. 2, 2026
Case Details
Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Decided
January 23, 2025
Citation
No. 10319824
Disposition
See opinion text.
Full Opinion
FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR No.22-16729
CRIMINAL JUSTICE;
CHRISTOPHER BAIRD DUPONT; D.C. No.
RICH ROBERTSON; RICHARD L. 2:17-cv-01422-
LOUGEE; RICHARD D. RANDALL; SPL
JEFFREY A. KIRCHLER; JOHN
CANBY,
Plaintiffs-Appellees, OPINION
v.
KRISTEN K. MAYES, in her official
capacity as Attorney General of the
State of Arizona,
Defendant-Appellant,
and
MARET VESSELLA, Chief Bar
Counsel of the State Bar of Arizona;
JEFFREY D. GLOVER, Colonel, in
his official capacity as Director of the
Arizona Department of Public Safety,*
Defendants.
*
Colonel Jeffrey D. Glover is substituted for his predecessor Colonel
Heston Silbert as Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety,
pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c).
2 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Steven Paul Logan, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 5, 2024
Phoenix, Arizona
Filed January 23, 2025
Before: Marsha S. Berzon, Andrew D. Hurwitz, and
Anthony D. Johnstone, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge Johnstone
SUMMARY**
First Amendment
The panel reversed the district court’s judgment for
plaintiffs, Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice
(“Attorneys”), and remanded, in an action alleging that an
Arizona law that requires criminal defense attorneys and
their agents (“Defense Team”) to initiate any contact with
victims through the prosecutor’s office (the “Victim Contact
Limit”) violates, on its face, the Speech Clause of the First
Amendment.
The Victim Contact Limit, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-
4433(B), primarily applies to requests for interviews,
**
This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 3
including, but not limited to, investigative interviews
seeking exculpatory information. But it also prohibits
covered actors from reaching out to victims for non-
interview conversations and information sharing on other
topics, such as the criminal legal system and the death
penalty process.
The panel noted that in considering a facial challenge it
may assume without deciding that the statute reaches some
protected speech. The Attorneys must also show, however,
that a substantial number of the Victim Contact Limit’s
applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the
law’s plainly legitimate sweep. Here, the Attorneys
challenged the Victim Contact Limit’s application only to
the extent it requires them to funnel requests for non-
interview contacts through the prosecution. But victim-
interview requests are the statute’s primary applications. So,
even assuming the challenged applications of the law are
unconstitutional, they are not substantial relative to the
unchallenged applications. Therefore, as framed, the
Attorneys’ facial challenge to the Victim Contact Limit fails.
The panel reversed the district court’s ruling that the Victim
Contact Limit is unconstitutional on its face, vacated the
permanent injunction against its enforcement, and remanded
for entry of judgment in favor of defendants.
4 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
COUNSEL
Jared G. Keenan (argued), American Civil Liberties Union
of Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona; Kathleen E. Brody, Mitchell
Stein Carey Chapman PC, Phoenix, Arizona; David A. Lane,
Killmer Lane LLP, Denver, Colorado; Andrew McNulty,
Newman McNulty, Denver, Colorado; for Plaintiffs-
Appellees.
Alexander W. Samuels (argued), Principal Deputy Solicitor
General; Ashley T. Levine, Assistant Attorney General;
Kristin K. Mayes, Attorney General; Office of the Arizona
Attorney General, Phoenix, Arizona; for Defendants-
Appellants.
Colleen Clase and Thomas E. Lordan, Arizona Voice for
Crime Victims, Phoenix, Arizona, for Amici Curiae Arizona
Voice for Crime Victims, Arizona Crime Victim Rights Law
Group, Legal Services for Crime Victims in Arizona, Parents
of Murdered Children, and the National Crime Victim Law
Institute.
Nicholas Klingerman, Krista Wood, and Robert E. Prather,
Deputy County Attorneys; Rachel H. Mitchell, Maricopa
County Attorney; Maricopa County Attorney's Office,
Phoenix, Arizona, for Amicus Curiae Maricopa County
Attorney's Office.
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 5
OPINION
JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judge:
Courts usually decide constitutional claims by
addressing specific applications of a law to individual
plaintiffs, case by case. But in this case the plaintiffs do more
than challenge the constitutionality of how a law applies to
them in a particular case. Instead, they challenge a statute on
its face and, if successful, their challenge would invalidate
that statute in all its applications.
In general, a facial challenge can succeed only when all
a statute’s applications would be unconstitutional. Yet in
facial challenges under the Speech Clause of the First
Amendment, like this one, courts set the bar lower out of
respect for the value of free expression. A plaintiff mounting
such a facial challenge must prove that the statute applies
unconstitutionally to a substantial amount of speech relative
to its constitutional applications. Only then can a court
invalidate the statute in all applications, including
potentially constitutional ones not challenged in the case.
Plaintiffs Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice
(“Attorneys”) challenge the part of an Arizona statute, Ariz.
Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-4433(B), that prohibits criminal defense
attorneys and their agents (“Defense Team”) from initiating
direct contact with crime victims. That part of the statute
(“Victim Contact Limit”) requires the Defense Team to
initiate any contact with victims through the prosecutor’s
office. The Attorneys bring a facial challenge to invalidate
that restriction, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
But the Attorneys do not challenge the Victim Contact Limit
to the extent that it requires the Defense Team to
communicate victim-interview requests through the
6 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
prosecution; they challenge it only to the extent it requires
them to funnel requests for non-interview contacts through
the prosecution. But victim-interview requests are the law’s
primary applications. So even if we assume the challenged
applications of the law are unconstitutional, they are not
substantial relative to the unchallenged applications.
Therefore, the Attorneys’ facial challenge to the Victim
Contact Limit, as they have framed it, must fail.
I. Victims’ Rights in Arizona and the Attorneys’
Challenge
In 1990, Arizona voters amended their state constitution
to include a crime victims’ bill of rights. Ariz. Const. art. II,
§ 2.1. That provision guarantees “victims’ rights to justice
and due process.” Id. § 2.1(A). These include rights “[t]o be
treated with fairness, respect, and dignity, and to be free from
intimidation, harassment, or abuse, throughout the criminal
justice process.” Id. § 2.1(A)(1). They also include the right
“[t]o refuse an interview, deposition, or other discovery
request by the defendant, the defendant’s attorney, or other
person acting on behalf of the defendant.” Id. § 2.1(A)(5).
The state constitution gives the Arizona Legislature
authority to enact laws implementing these rights. Id.
§ 2.1(D). In 1991, the Legislature enacted the Victims’
Rights Implementation Act, 1991 Ariz. Sess. Laws 1137,
1152. That Act includes the Victim Contact Limit.
A. The Victim Contact Limit and Its Implementation
The Victims’ Rights Implementation Act provides that:
[t]he defendant, the defendant’s attorney or
an agent of the defendant shall only initiate
contact with the victim through the
prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 7
shall promptly inform the victim of the
defendant’s request for an interview and shall
advise the victim of the victim’s right to
refuse the interview.
Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-4433(B). The Victim Contact
Limit that the Attorneys challenge is the Act’s restriction on
“the defendant’s attorney,” which the parties agree extends
to the entire Defense Team. The Victim Contact Limit
prohibits contacts from the Defense Team from the filing of
charges through sentencing to “final disposition.” Id. §§ 13-
4401(9), 13-4402(A). The term “victim” includes any
“person against whom the criminal offense has been
committed” or the person’s close relatives “if the person is
killed or incapacitated.” Id. § 13-4401(19).
Under the supervision of the Arizona Attorney General,
prosecutors’ offices implement the Victim Contact Limit in
different ways. Most use a form letter to inform victims of a
Defense Team request for an interview. The language of the
form letters varies among prosecutors’ offices. While the
form letter is not required, the Victim Contact Limit does
require prosecutors to “promptly inform the victim of the
defendant’s request for an interview.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann.
§ 13-4433(B).
B. The Attorneys’ Challenge to the Victim Contact
Limit
The Attorneys sued the Arizona Attorney General, the
Chief Bar Counsel, and the Director of the Arizona
Department of Public Safety in their official capacities. The
operative complaint challenged the Victim Contact Limit
under the Speech Clause of the First Amendment, seeking to
enjoin the statute’s enforcement as to the Defense Team, and
8 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
contending that the requirement that “the defendant’s
attorney” contact crime victims through prosecutors is
unconstitutional on its face. The Attorney General moved to
dismiss for lack of standing because the Attorneys did not
challenge the similar limits of Arizona Rule of Criminal
Procedure 39 (“Rule 39”). That rule similarly requires “the
defense” to “communicate requests to interview a victim to
the prosecutor, not the victim.” Ariz. R. Crim. P.
39(b)(12)(A). Given this overlap, the Attorney General
argued, the district court could not redress the plaintiffs’
injuries because Rule 39(b)(12)(A) would continue to
prevent defense attorney contact with crime victims even if
the Victim Contact Limit were unconstitutional. The district
court agreed and dismissed the case.
A panel of this Court reversed in an unpublished
decision. Ariz. Att’ys for Crim. Just. v. Brnovich, No. 20-
16293, 2021 WL 3743888, at *1 (9th Cir. Aug. 24, 2021).
We concluded that the Attorneys established the
redressability requirement of standing. Id. at *2. We
explained that, “because it is possible to contact a victim
without requesting to interview them, and thus violate § 13-
4433(B) without violating Rule 39(b)(12)(A), enjoining
Defendants from enforcing § 13-4433(B) would relieve a
discrete injury.” Id. at *2. On remand, the Attorneys renewed
their motion for a preliminary injunction. The district court
consolidated the preliminary injunction hearing with a bench
trial.
At trial, the Attorneys offered testimony that, absent the
Victim Contact Limit, they would share information about
the criminal legal system with crime victims. For example,
one defense attorney would explain to victims that the death
penalty process takes years and involves continued contact
with the legal system that can be retraumatizing. Ariz. Att’ys
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 9
for Crim. Just. v. Ducey, 638 F. Supp. 3d 1048, 1062 (D.
Ariz. 2022). In doing so, the defense attorney hoped to help
victims make a more informed decision about participation
in the case. Id. Other defense attorneys would share their
beliefs about justice and punishment with victims,
investigate offenses, gather mitigation evidence in death
penalty cases, and answer victims’ questions about the
defendant, the case, and the legal system. Id. at 1061−63.
In response, the Attorney General asserted the state’s
interests in the Victim Contact Limit, including
implementing crime victims’ Arizona constitutional and
statutory rights, protecting victims from being
retraumatized, and leveling the playing field between
victims with counsel and those without counsel. Id. at 1064–
65. For example, the Attorney General asserted, defense
counsels’ direct first-time contact with victims might harm
victims by retraumatizing them because of counsels’
association with the defendant. Id. at 1067−68. The district
court agreed that “[i]t is possible that some victims may
experience a negative reaction if contacted directly by the
defense team.” Id. at 1068.
After trial, the court permanently enjoined enforcement
of the Victim Contact Limit, concluding it violated the
Speech Clause of the First Amendment. After the Attorney
General moved to amend the judgment, the district court
recognized that a Defense Team’s request to interview a
victim directly, which remains prohibited by Rule
39(b)(12)(A), falls within the scope of the Victim Contact
Limit. So the district court amended its permanent injunction
to specify that it enjoined enforcement of the statutory
Victim Contact Limit, but clarified that “[n]othing in this
Order shall be construed . . . to enjoin A.R.S. § 13-4433(B)’s
10 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
requirement that ‘[t]he prosecutor’s office shall promptly
inform the victim of the defendant’s request for an interview
and shall advise the victim of the victim’s right to refuse the
interview.’” We review the district court’s “legal conclusions
de novo, the factual findings for clear error, and the decision
to grant a permanent injunction, as well as its scope, for an
abuse of discretion.” Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc. v. Fung,
710 F.3d 1020, 1030 (9th Cir. 2013).
II. The Facial Speech Clause Challenge
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom
of speech[.]” U.S. Const. amend. I; see also U.S. Const.
amend. XIV, § 1 (incorporating the Speech Clause against
the states). At the threshold, the parties dispute whether the
Victim Contact Limit, and in particular its requirement that
the Defense Team “shall only initiate contact with the victim
through the prosecutor’s office,” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-
4433(B), is a regulation of speech at all.
The Attorneys argue, and the district court held, that
prohibiting the Defense Team—but not the prosecution—
from directly contacting victims is a content- and viewpoint-
based regulation of speech subject to strict scrutiny. See
Holder v. Humanitarian L. Project, 561 U.S. 1, 27–28
(2010). The Attorney General responds that the Victim
Contact Limit regulates professional contact with victims
through a procedural mechanism that only “incidentally
involves speech.” See Nat’l Inst. of Fam. & Life Advocs. v.
Becerra, 585 U.S. 755, 768 (2018); Tingley v. Ferguson, 47
F.4th 1055, 1080 (9th Cir. 2022); see also Gentile v. State
Bar of Nevada, 501 U.S. 1030, 1074 (1991) (explaining that
“the speech of lawyers representing clients in pending cases
may be regulated under a less demanding standard than that
established for regulation of” other types of speech).
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 11
We need not resolve that dispute because the Attorneys
made a facial challenge to the Victim Contact Limit. In
considering a facial challenge we may assume without
deciding that the statute “reaches some protected speech.”
United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762, 784 (2023);
Marquez-Reyes v. Garland, 36 F.4th 1195, 1207 (9th Cir.
2022). But even so, the Attorneys must also show that “a
substantial number of [the Victim Contact Limit’s]
applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the
statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Ams. for Prosperity
Found. v. Bonta, 594 U.S. 595, 615 (2021) (quoting United
States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473 (2010)). Or, as the
Supreme Court has more recently characterized the standard,
“the ratio of unlawful-to-lawful applications” must be
“lopsided enough to justify the ‘strong medicine’ of facial
invalidation for overbreadth.” Hansen, 599 U.S. at 784
(quoting Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613 (1973)).
Even under the Speech Clause, facial challenges are “hard to
win” because they “‘often rest on speculation’ about the
law’s coverage and its future enforcement,” and, when
successful, “prevent[] duly enacted laws from being
implemented in constitutional ways.” Moody v. NetChoice,
LLC, 603 U.S. 707, 723 (2024) (quoting Wash. State Grange
v. Wash. State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 450–51
(2008)).
We proceed to the facial claim before us in two steps.
First, we “assess the state law[’s] scope.” Id. at 724. Second,
we “must explore the [Victim Contact Limit’s] full range of
applications—the constitutionally impermissible and
permissible both—and compare the two sets.” Id. at 726. In
doing so, we assume without deciding that the Victim
Contact Limit is unconstitutional as applied to the Attorneys’
proposed non-interview contacts with victims.
12 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
A. The General Scope of the Victim Contact Limit
First, we assess the scope of the law at issue: “What
activities, by what actors, do the laws prohibit or otherwise
regulate?” Id. at 724. The parties agree that the actors
regulated by the Victim Contact Limit are members of the
Defense Team.
As to the activities regulated, the Victim Contact Limit
prohibits the initiation of contact with a crime victim unless
the defense “initiate[s] contact with the victim through the
prosecutor’s office.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-4433(B). The
Victim Contact Limit applies from the arrest or formal
charging of the defendant until the final disposition of the
charges. Id. § 13-4402(A). It includes not only crime victims
themselves, but also family members of victims who have
been “killed or incapacitated.” Id. § 13-4401(19). Initiating
contact without going through the prosecutor’s office
violates the Victim Contact Limit even if the victim accepts
the contact. See id. § 13-4433(B) (providing no exception for
such contact).
On its face, the Victim Contact Limit covers any
communication at all during a criminal case. Its primary
application is to requests for interviews, including, but not
limited to, investigative interviews seeking exculpatory
information. But the district court concluded, and the parties
do not dispute, that the Victim Contact Limit applies beyond
victim interviews to broader conversations about the case
and the legal system in general. It prohibits covered actors
from reaching out to “victims who have unresolved
questions about the crime committed against them and the
criminal defendant in hopes of aiding in the victim’s
understanding and healing,” Ariz. Att’ys, 638 F. Supp. 3d at
1063, or initiating conversations with victims involving
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 13
“personal views about the goals of the criminal legal system”
to “further truth-seeking within the legal system,” id. at
1062. The Victim Contact Limit also applies to Defense
Team attempts to contact victims with information that it
believes may help victims—and the Defense Team’s
clients—such as general information about the legal process
and the Defense Team’s “core beliefs about trauma,
punishment, and justice.”
B. The Challenged Applications of the Victim
Contact Limit
Second, we “decide which of the laws’ applications
violate the First Amendment, and . . . measure them against
the rest.” Moody, 603 U.S. at 725. The Attorneys challenge
the Victim Contact Limit’s application to Defense Team
contacts with victims to share information about the crime,
the case, and the legal system generally. Even if we assume
that these challenged applications are unconstitutional, for
purposes of the facial challenge we also must account for
“the rest” of the applications not challenged.
Most significantly, the Attorneys do not challenge the
Victim Contact Limit’s application to a Defense Team’s
initiation of contact with victims to request an interview. As
the district court recognized in its amended judgment, and
the Attorneys conceded at oral argument, such direct
requests for victim interviews remain within the scope of
Rule 39(b)(12)(A), which the Attorneys did not contest and
the district court did not enjoin.1 Under that rule, the Defense
1
We previously held that the Attorneys have standing “because it is
possible to contact a victim [under the Victim Contact Limit] without
requesting to interview them [under Rule 39(b)(12)(A).]” Ariz. Att’ys,
14 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
Team still must make these interview requests through a
prosecutor’s office, just as they are required to do under the
Victim Contact Limit. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 39(b)(12)(A)
(requiring “the defense” to “communicate requests to
interview a victim to the prosecutor, not the victim”).
Because of that overlap, the Attorneys leave unchallenged
the law’s application to victim-interview requests covered by
Rule 39(b)(12)(A).2 Given that the Attorneys chose not to
challenge the Victim Contact Limit’s application to
interview requests or appeal the district court’s modification
of the preliminary injunction, we must treat that application
as constitutional for purposes of this facial challenge. See
Moody, 603 U.S. at 726 (instructing that a court’s
overbreadth analysis must address “the law[’s] full range of
applications” and place each application on one side of the
scale).
Instead, the Attorneys direct their challenge to the edges
of the Victim Contact Limit: initiating contact for the
Defense Team’s “conversations” and “information sharing”
with victims. But victim interviews are the core concern of
the challenged law. The statutory section at issue bookends
the Victim Contact Limit with provisions that speak directly
to victim interviews. Subsection (A), just before the
subsection (B) contact limit, provides that “[u]nless the
victim consents, the victim shall not be compelled to submit
2021 WL 3743888, at *2. But whether a party has standing to bring a
facial challenge and whether that challenge succeeds on the merits are
different questions. Maya v. Centex Corp., 658 F.3d 1060, 1068 (9th Cir.
2011) (“[T]he threshold question of whether plaintiff has standing (and
the court has jurisdiction) is distinct from the merits of his claim.”).
2
At oral argument, the Attorneys suggested that Rule 39(b)(12)(A)
applies only to requests for “formal” interviews, like depositions, rather
than all interview requests. But Rule 39 contains no such distinction.
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 15
to an interview on any matter . . . that is conducted by the
defendant, the defendant’s attorney or an agent of the
defendant.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-4433(A). Subsection
(D), two sections after the Victim Contact Limit, states the
conditions on the interview that would follow the initiation
of contact “[i]f the victim consents.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann.
§ 13-4433(D). This statutory context frames the Victim
Contact Limit primarily as a regulation of victim-interview
requests. And the Attorneys admit that most of the speech at
issue relates to their investigation and defense of the cases
involving the victims with whom they propose to
communicate, including through interviews.
C. Measuring the Unchallenged against the
Challenged Applications
Plaintiffs in a facial challenge must prove that the
statute’s “unconstitutional applications [are] realistic, not
fanciful, and their number must be substantially
disproportionate to the statute’s lawful sweep.” Hansen, 599
U.S. at 770; Tucson v. City of Seattle, 91 F.4th 1318, 1327
(9th Cir. 2024). Without a “lopsided ratio,” Hansen, 599 U.S.
at 770, a facial challenge fails because “the law’s
unconstitutional applications” must “substantially outweigh
its constitutional ones,” Moody, 603 U.S. at 724.
The Attorneys argue, and the district court held, that the
Victim Contact Limit is facially unconstitutional because
“[e]ven if the Statute has a plainly legitimate sweep to
speech that is harassing, intimidating, or abusive, . . . the
Statute covers all defense-initiated contact with victims in
ongoing proceedings[.]” Ariz. Att’ys, 638 F. Supp. 3d at
1086. On that view, the law’s presumably unconstitutional
application to non-abusive contact would be substantial in
relation to its legitimate application to abusive contact. Id.
16 ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES
But this approach mistakes both sides of the ratio at issue.
First, it understates the Victim Contact Limit’s legitimate
sweep, which goes beyond abusive contact. That sweep also
includes the law’s unchallenged applications to victim-
interview requests. As those aspects of the law are
unchallenged, they would remain in force even if the
Attorneys’ facial challenge were to succeed, and so are
properly considered lawful for purposes of the overbreadth
analysis. Conversely, counting these unchallenged
applications as unlawful overstates the extent of the Victim
Contact Limit’s unconstitutional applications. Excluding
these unchallenged applications, all that’s left as allegedly
unconstitutional are Defense Team contacts that do not
request a victim interview.
Considering the full scope of the Victim Contact Limit
against the limited contacts here challenged, its assumedly
unconstitutional applications are insubstantial relative to its
assumedly valid ones. The Victim Contact Limit’s primary
applications to victim-interview requests are, absent a
challenge, its “legitimate sweep.”3 Therefore, the Attorneys’
facial challenge must fail.4
3
The Supreme Court sometimes frames the relevant inquiry as the
absolute weight, rather than the relative number, of impermissible
applications. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 292
(2008) (assessing whether a statute “prohibits a substantial amount of
protected speech” without determining the number of constitutional
applications). Any difference between these two metrics does not change
our analysis. Whether measured by weight or by number, the challenged
applications are insubstantial.
4
We also reject the Attorneys’ argument that the Victim Contact Limit is
an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. First, the Victim Contact
Limit, which requires the government to communicate contact requests
ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE V. MAYES 17
III. Conclusion
In rejecting the Attorneys’ facial challenge under the
Speech Clause, we do not reach the constitutionality of the
Victim Contact Limit. Nor do we decide whether a future
facial or as-applied challenge to the law, including its
application to victim-interview requests, could succeed. We
hold only that this facial challenge to the Victim Contact
Limit, as framed, fails. Accordingly, we reverse the district
court’s ruling that the Victim Contact Limit is
unconstitutional on its face, vacate the permanent injunction
against its enforcement, and remand for entry of judgment in
favor of Defendants.
REVERSED and REMANDED
to victims, does not authorize “administrative and judicial orders
forbidding certain communications . . . in advance of the time that such
communications are to occur.” Alexander v. United States, 509 U.S. 544,
550 (1993) (quoting Melville B. Nimmer, Nimmer on Freedom of
Speech: A Treatise on the Theory of the First Amendment § 4.03, at 4–14
(1984)). Nor does the Victim Contact Limit, which allows the victim the
discretion to choose to talk to the Defense Team, “vest[] unbridled
discretion” in the government to license some speech and forbid other
speech. Get Outdoors II, LLC v. City of San Diego, 506 F.3d 886, 894
(9th Cir. 2007) (quoting City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ’g Co.,
486 U.S. 750, 759 (1988)).
Plain English Summary
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR No.22-16729 CRIMINAL JUSTICE; CHRISTOPHER BAIRD DUPONT; D.C.
Key Points
01FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR No.22-16729 CRIMINAL JUSTICE; CHRISTOPHER BAIRD DUPONT; D.C.
02MAYES, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the State of Arizona, Defendant-Appellant, and MARET VESSELLA, Chief Bar Counsel of the State Bar of Arizona; JEFFREY D.
03GLOVER, Colonel, in his official capacity as Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety,* Defendants.
04Glover is substituted for his predecessor Colonel Heston Silbert as Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c).
Frequently Asked Questions
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ARIZONA ATTORNEYS FOR No.22-16729 CRIMINAL JUSTICE; CHRISTOPHER BAIRD DUPONT; D.C.
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