Massachusetts v. Oakes

Before the Supreme Court had time to review Oakes' case, the Massachusetts state legislature revised the law. They specified that only nudity photographed "with lascivious intent" was illegal, and they removed the exemptions for medical, scientific, and artistic purposes. The Supreme Court agreed that this new law was not overbroad. Unlike the original statute, it would not have what is known as a "chilling effect"--that is, it would not keep people from exercising their constitutional rights of free expression for fear of being arrested.

But the important question of what to do with Oakes still remained. His challenge to the original statute had been based on the premise that the statute was overbroad, that it did have a chilling effect on the free speech of others. By rewriting the law, the Massachusetts legislature had removed that chilling effect. On the question of whether or not Oakes's case would still be considered, the Court was divided. A plurality of justices--enough to carry the vote but less than a majority--agreed to remand Oakes's case back to a lower court. The lower court would then be free to reconsider Oakes's case.

However, some justices strongly disagreed. They felt that part of the point of calling a law overbroad was to discourage legislatures from passing such sweeping legislation. If the Massachusetts legislature was not penalized by losing the chance to convict Oakes, the justices feared it would not learn to restrain itself in the future. As Justice Scalia wrote in his partial dissent, if no valid convictions are lost when an overbroad law is thrown out, "then legislatures would have significantly reduced incentive to stay within constitutional bounds in the first place."

In other words, some of the justices felt that unless legislatures lose something by writing overly broad laws--as in this case, they might lose the chance to convict Douglas Oakes--they might tend to write broad, sweeping laws and just wait for the courts to narrow them. Meanwhile, the overbroad laws would have a chilling effect, and many law-abiding citizens would have their constitutional rights restricted.