United States v. Matusiewicz

• Citation: 84 F.Supp.3d 363
• Decision Date: 26 March 2015
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL ACTION No.13–83
• Parties: United States of America, Plaintiff, v. David Thomas Matusiewicz et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

84 F.Supp.3d 363

United States of America, Plaintiff

v.David Thomas Matusiewicz et al., Defendants.

CRIMINAL ACTION No.13–83

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

Signed March 26, 2015

Jamie M. McCall, Edward J. McAndrew, Shawn Weede, U.S. Attorney's Office, Wilmington, DE, for Plaintiff.

Edson A. Bostic, Dina Chavar, Federal Public Defender's Office, Wilmington, DE, Kenneth C. Edelin, Jr., Kenneth C. Edelin, Jr., Esq., Philadelphia, PA, Jeremy H.G. Ibrahim, Law Office of Jeremy H. Gonzalez Ibrahim, Jeremy Gonzalez Ibrahim, Chadds Ford, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

McHUGH, District Judge

I. Introduction

Amy Gonzalez stands indicted for cyberstalking and conspiracy in connection with the murder of her sister-in-law Christine Belford. Because the federal statute which criminalizes cyberstalking involves instrumentalities of communication, by its very nature it invites questions as to whether it impermissibly punishes protected speech.

Defendant Gonzalez has moved to dismiss the indictment,¹ arguing that “as applied to Amy Gonzalez, the cyberstalking statute (Title 18 U.S.C. § 2261(A) ) violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment because it is overbroad.” Motion to Dismiss the Indictment as to Amy Gonzalez 1. The Motion further contends that the statute “is unconstitutionally vague and violates the defendant's due process rights under the Fifth Amendment in that the statute does not give notice as to what specific conduct is unlawful.” Id. For the reasons that follow, the Motion will be denied.

II. Summary of the Indictment

The Government's Indictment against Amy Gonzalez and two co-conspirators, David Thomas Matusiewicz and Lenore Matusiewicz, alleges that they engaged in a prolonged campaign to surveil and harass David Thomas Matusiewicz's ex-wife, Christine Belford. According to the Indictment, David and Christine had divorced in 2006, and a court awarded the parents joint custody of their three children.

In 2007, David Matusiewicz and his mother Lenore kidnapped the children and fled to Nicaragua. Authorities returned the children to Christine Belford, and in 2009, David Matusiewicz pled guilty to parental kidnapping and bank fraud. In 2010, the Delaware Family Court terminated David Matusiewicz's parental rights. The Indictment alleges that “[a]fter the commencement of federal criminal proceedings against him,” David Matusiewicz began making accusations that Christine Belford sexually abused their children. Indictment ¶ 10. In terminating his parental rights, the Family Court did not find David Matusiewicz's accusations of abuse to be credible.

The Indictment alleges that from 2009 to 2013, David Matusiewicz, Lenore Matusiewicz, and Amy Gonzalez conducted their campaign to surveil and harass Christine Belford. It accuses the Defendants of acts that include posting accusations against Christine Belford online, sending accusations against Belford to the school that one of the children attended and Belford's church, and soliciting their friends' assistance in visiting Belford's home to monitor Belford. In 2013, David Matusiewicz, his father, Thomas, and Lenore Matusiewicz travelled to Delaware for a family court hearing. At the New Castle County Courthouse, Thomas Matusiewicz shot and killed Christine Belford and her companion on February 11, 2013 and took his own life.

The Indictment does not charge any of the Defendants with the murder of Christine Belford or with conspiracy to commit that murder. Rather, the Indictment charges the Defendants with offenses related to their alleged surveillance and harassment. Specifically, the Indictment charges Defendants with violations of the federal interstate stalking statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A(1), 2261(b) & 2, the federal cyberstalking statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A(2), 2261(b) & 2, and conspiracy to violate those statutes—offenses that in this case could carry a penalty of life in prison.

III. Federal Cyberstalking Statute: 18 U.S.C. § 2261A(2)

Congress passed the original version of the statute at issue in this case in 1996. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 § 1069, Pub.L. 104–201, 110 Stat. 2422 (Sept. 23, 1996). The original version prohibited physical stalking that placed a victim in reasonable fear of physical injury. Id. It has since been amended to include a prohibition of “cyberstalking,” and the relevant text now reads:

Whoever—

(2) with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, uses the mail, any interactive computer service or electronic communication service or electronic communication system of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in a course of conduct that—

(A) places that person in reasonable fear of the death of or serious bodily injury to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (1)(A); or

(B) causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (1)(A),

shall be punished as provided in section 2261(b) of this title.

18 U.S.C. § 2261A.

IV. Defendant's First Amendment Challenge to the Cyberstalking Statute

A challenge to a statute asserting that it violates the First Amendment as “overbroad”is materially different from a challenge that a statute is unconstitutional “as applied.” Defendant Gonzalez has advanced a hybrid argument, and because these are distinct challenges with different substantive legal rules, I will consider both.

A. Is the Cyberstalking Statute Unconstitutionally Overbroad ?

The overbreadth doctrine “permits the facial invalidation of laws that inhibit the exercise of First Amendment rights if the impermissible applications of the law are substantial when judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.” City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 52, 119 S.Ct. 1849, 144 L.Ed.2d 67 (1999). Striking down a statute that also has legitimate applications because of its potential to punish or chill protected expression is a drastic remedy. The Supreme Court has therefore instructed that courts should employ this remedy “sparingly and only as a last resort.” Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). A statute should be invalidated as unconstitutionally overbroad only if “a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep”, United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 176 L.Ed.2d 435 (2010), and “if no reasonable limiting construction is available that would render the policy constitutional.” Sypniewski v. Warren Hills Regional Bd. o f Educ., 307 F.3d 243, 258 (3d Cir.2002). The burden to establish the overbreadth of a statute rests on the party challenging it. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 122, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003).

Defendant contends that Section 2261A is unconstitutional because it criminalizes speech based on the effects that speech has on others, and punishes expression protected by the First Amendment. As proof of the overbreadth of Section 2261A, Gonzalez asserts that the various statements she is charged with making were protected expression. Specifically, Defendant cites statements from the Indictment alleging that she engaged in various communications on the Internet and other media accusing Christine Belford of sexually abusing her children. Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss 13. Clearly, she argues, an aunt has an interest in the well-being of her nieces, and she describes her statements as “expressions of the defendant's sincere belief ... regarding defendant's opinion of Christine Belford.” Id.

These limited examples of potentially protected speech do not suffice. For an overbreadth challenge to succeed, the law in question must frequently intrude into areas of protective speech. Four circuit courts have already rejected such a challenge. In United States v. Sayer, 748 F.3d 425, 434–36 (1st Cir.2014), like Ms. Gonzalez here, the defendant argued that the cyberstalking statute “encompasses speech that causes only substantial emotional distress,” and therefore “it proscribes protected expression that is merely annoying or insulting.” The First Circuit disagreed, finding that the statute has many legitimate applications. Id. at 435. It noted that only one other court, the District of Maryland in United States v. Cassidy, 814 F.Supp.2d 574 (D.Md.2011), found circumstances where the statute was unconstitutionally applied to protected expression. In the absence of a pattern of unconstitutional applications of the statute, the court concluded that it could not find the statute was unconstitutionally overbroad. See also United States v. Petrovic, 701 F.3d 849, 856 (8th Cir.2012) (“Because a substantial number of the statute's applications will not be unconstitutional, we decline to use the strong medicine of overbreadth to invalidate the entire [statute]”) (internal citations omitted) (alteration in citation); United States v. Bowker, 372 F.3d 365, 379 (6th Cir.2004) (“Most, if not all, of these laws' legal applications are to conduct that is not protected by the First Amendment. Thus, Bowker has failed to demonstrate how 18 U.S.C. § 2261A is substantially overbroad.”), rev'd on other grounds, 543 U.S. 1182, 125 S.Ct. 1420, 161 L.Ed.2d 181 (2005) ; United States v. Osinger, 753 F.3d 939 (9th Cir.2014) (rejecting overbreadth and vagueness challenges to § 2261A ).

Ms. Gonzalez does not put forward persuasive arguments for reaching a conclusion at odds with the decisions of so many other courts. Defendant offers only her own purportedly protected speech as evidence that the statute is overbroad. This does not suffice to meet the heavy burden of showing that the statute as a whole is unconstitutionally overbroad in relation to its legitimate applications. If the Indictment is...