Pennsylvania Accessories Trade Ass'n v. Thornburgh

565 F. Supp. 1568, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16073
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 22, 1983
DocketCiv. A. No. 81-0126
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 565 F. Supp. 1568 (Pennsylvania Accessories Trade Ass'n v. Thornburgh) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pennsylvania Accessories Trade Ass'n v. Thornburgh, 565 F. Supp. 1568, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16073 (M.D. Pa. 1983).

Opinion

OPINION

HERMAN, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Drug paraphernalia statutes and ordinances are a response to the development of an extensive multi-million dollar industry that promotes and glamorizes the illegal use of drugs through the manufacture and sale of implements for preparing and using illicit drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine. See Hearings Before the House Select Comm, on Narcotics Abuse And Control, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (November 1, 1979) (statement of Dep. Ass’t. Atty. Gen’l. Irvin B. Nathan). See also Levas and Levas v. Village of Antioch, 684 F.2d 446, 449 (7th Cir.1982); Tobacco Accessories & Novelty Craftsmen Assoc. v. Treen, 681 F.2d 378, 380 (5th Cir.1982). The Model Drug Paraphernalia Act (hereinafter referred to as “The Model Act”), drafted by the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice at the request of the Drug Policy Office of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, Record Revolution No. 6, Inc. v. City of Parma, 638 F.2d 916, 919 (6th Cir.1980), vacated and remanded, 456 U.S. 968, 102 S.Ct. 2227, 72 L.Ed.2d 840 (1982), represents an attempt to write a statute that would be broad enough to deal with the problem effectively, but which would avoid the constitutional infirmities that resulted in successful challenges to various state and local drug paraphernalia laws. Stoianoff v. Montana, 695 F.2d 1214, 1217 (9th Cir.1983); Levas, 684 F.2d at 449; Tobacco Accessories, 681 F.2d at 380 & n. 3; Casbah, Inc. v. Thone, 651 F.2d 551, 555 (8th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1005, 102 S.Ct. 1642, 71 L.Ed.2d 874 (1982). Pennsylvania’s Drug Paraphernalia Act of December 4,1980, P.L. 634, No. 186, codified at 35 P.S. §§ 780-102(b), 780-113(a)(32)-(34), & 780 — 113(i) (Purdon Supp.1983) (hereinafter referred to as “Act 186”) adopts verbatim the language of the Model Act. See Appendix.

Act 186 was to become effective as an amendment to Pennsylvania’s Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act, 35 P.S. §§ 780-101, et seq., on February 2, 1981. Prior to the effective date, on January 26, 1981, Plaintiffs1 filed this action attacking the statute as facially unconstitutional. After a hearing on January 30, 1981, this court granted Plaintiffs’ application for a temporary restraining order. A hearing on Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction was held on February 18, 1981. On February 27, 1981, we enjoined Defendants Richard Thornburgh2 and Le-Roy Zimmerman3 from enforcing Act 186 until a decision could be rendered on the merits of Plaintiffs’ constitutional chal[1571]*1571lenge. The Parties then proceeded to conduct discovery.

On March 3, 1982, the United States Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in Village Of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, 455 U.S. 489, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982). Although the ordinance in Flipside was not patterned after the Model Act, the lower courts have considered pre-enforcement, facial challenges to versions of the Model Act in light of the analytical framework set forth in Flipside. But see B. Gerson, “Head Shops: A Legal Haze,” Nat’l L.J. at 8 (Aug. 23,1982) (Flip-side provides little guidance). To date, nine circuit courts have upheld statutes based on the Model Act. In seven of the circuits the cases were decided after the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Flipside.4 Consequently, on November 2, 1982, Defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis that Plaintiffs’ facial challenge involves only the legal question of whether or not Act 186 conflicts with the United States Constitution, which question Defendants assert should be resolved in their favor. Supporting and opposing memoranda were duly filed. We held oral argument on March 28, 1983. After careful review of the extensive case law in this area, the briefs and arguments of counsel, we now grant Defendants’ motion for summary judgment for the reasons set forth below.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Overbreadth and Vagueness

The Supreme Court in Flipside enunciated the following analysis to be used in resolving facial challenges to the over-breadth and vagueness of a law:

a court’s first task is to determine whether the enactment reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct. If it does not, then the overbreadth challenge must fail. The court should then examine the facial vagueness challenge and, assuming the enactment implicates no constitutionally protected conduct, should uphold the challenge only if the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to others. A court should therefore examine the complainant’s conduct before analyzing other hypothetical applications of the law.

455 U.S. at 494r-95, 102 S.Ct. at 1191. The Supreme Court also noted that in evaluating a state law a federal court must consider any limiting construction that a state court or enforcement agency has proffered. Id. at 494 n. 5, 102 S.Ct. at 1191 n. 5.

We will follow this scheme in our examination of Act 186. The volume of recent case law in which versions of the Model Act have been subjected to scrutiny for over-breadth and vagueness, and upheld,5 makes our task an easier one. We will not repeat the analysis, therefore, with the same depth of detail that appears in other discussions. We will, however, attempt to highlight those areas in which Plaintiffs claim this case is distinguishable from decisions ad[1572]*1572verse to their position by the various appellate courts.

1. Overbreadth

In considering an overbreadth challenge to a statute, the concern is not with a law’s uncertainty, but with its potential for punishing constitutionally protected conduct. “A law is facially overbroad if it does not aim specifically at evils within the allowable area of [government] control, but ... sweeps within its ambit other activities that constitute an exercise of constitutionally protected rights.” Tobacco Accessories & Novelty Craftsmen Assoc. v. Treen, 681 F.2d 378, 382 (5th Cir.1982), quoting Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 97, 60 S.Ct. 736, 741, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). The concepts of vagueness and overbreadth are interrelated, however. The Supreme Court has recognized that ambiguous meanings cause citizens to “steer far wider of the unlawful zone ... than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked.” Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 372, 84 S.Ct. 1316, 1322, 12 L.Ed.2d 377 (1964), quoting Speiser v. Randall,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

PA. ACCESSORIES TRADE ASS'N, INC. v. Thornburgh
565 F. Supp. 1568 (M.D. Pennsylvania, 1983)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
565 F. Supp. 1568, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16073, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pennsylvania-accessories-trade-assn-v-thornburgh-pamd-1983.