California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Andre P., In re, 226 Cal.App.3d 1164, 277 Cal.Rptr. 363 (Cal. App. 1991):
Appellant demonstrates no instance where a small possibility of a statute arguably being applied to protected conduct should result in invalidation or speculative restriction of the statute as a result of anticipation. For example, that a person who burns the flag of our country might be [226 Cal.App.3d 1178] arrested for disturbing the peace even though such conduct may be construed as protected First Amendment expression does not mean the remedy is to invalidate the statute against disturbing the peace. More reasonably, the remedy is to conclude the protected conduct is not proscribed by the statute. As discussed in Broadrick, "[P]articularly where conduct and not merely speech is involved, we believe that the overbreadth of a statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep. It is our view that section 818 is not substantially overbroad and that whatever overbreadth may exist should be cured through case-by-case analysis of the fact situations to which its sanctions, assertedly, may not be applied." (Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 615-616, 93 S.Ct. at p. 2918, fn. omitted.)
Otherwise stated: "It may be that such restrictions [under administrative rules] are impermissible and that section 818 may be susceptible of some other improper applications. But, as presently construed, we do not believe that section 818 must be disregarded in toto because some person's arguably protected conduct may or may not be caught or chilled by the statute. Section 818 is not substantially overbroad and is not, therefore, unconstitutional on its face." (Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 618, 93 S.Ct. at p. 2919.)
"Words inevitably contain germs of uncertainty...." (Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 608, 93 S.Ct. at p. 2913.) Recognition of this fact assumes words and statutes will be given their ordinarily
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