United States v. Williams (2008)

United States v. Williams
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 30, 2007 Decided May 19, 2008
Full case name	United States, Petitioner v. Michael Williams
Docket no.	06-694
Citations	553 U.S. 285 (more) 128 S. Ct. 1830; 170 L. Ed. 2d 650; 2008 U.S. LEXIS 4314; 76 U.S.L.W. 4275; 21 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 238
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted and sentenced, No. 04–20299, (S.D. Fla., Aug. 20, 2004); rev'd, 444 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 2006); 549 U.S. 1304 (2007).
Holding
Federal statute prohibiting the pandering of child pornography was not unconstitutionally overbroad. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Scalia, joined by Roberts, Stevens, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito
Concurrence	Stevens, joined by Breyer
Dissent	Souter, joined by Ginsburg
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(3)(B) (PROTECT Act of 2003)

United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a federal statute prohibiting the "pandering" of child pornography^[1] (offering or requesting to transfer, sell, deliver, or trade the items) did not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if a person charged under the code did in fact not possess child pornography with which to trade.^[2]

The decision overturned the Eleventh Circuit's ruling that the statute was facially void for overbreadth and vagueness.^[3] The Supreme Court reasoned that there is no First Amendment protection for offers to engage in illegal transactions,^[4] and that banning "the collateral speech that introduces such material into the child-pornography distribution network" does not in fact criminalize a "substantial amount of protected speech."