Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024)
7
THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment
Facial challenges ask courts to issue holdings that are
rarely, if ever, required to resolve a single case or controversy. The only way a plaintiff gets into a federal court is
by showing that he “personally has suffered some actual or
threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant.” Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991,
999 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted). And, the
only remedy a plaintiff should leave a federal court with is
one “limited to the inadequacy that produced the injury in
fact that the plaintiff has established.” Lewis v. Casey, 518
U. S. 343, 357 (1996). Accordingly, once a court decides
whether a statute can be validly enforced against the plaintiff who challenges it, that case or controversy is resolved.
Either the court remedies the plaintiff ’s injury, or it determines that the statute may be constitutionally applied to
the plaintiff.
Proceeding to decide the merits of possible constitutional
challenges that could be brought by other plaintiffs is not
necessary to resolve that case. Instead, any holding with
respect to potential future plaintiffs would be “no more than
an advisory opinion—which a federal court should never issue at all, and especially should not issue with regard to a
constitutional question, as to which we seek to avoid even
nonadvisory opinions.” Chicago v. Morales, 527 U. S. 41, 77
(1999) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (citation omitted).
Unsurprisingly, facial challenges are at odds with doctrines enforcing the case-or-controversy requirement. Pursuant to standing doctrine, for example, a plaintiff can
maintain a suit in a federal court—and thus invoke judicial
power—only if he has suffered an “injury” with a “traceable
connection” to the “complained-of conduct of the defendant.”
Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 103. Facial challenges significantly
relax those rules. Start with the injury requirement. Facial challenges allow a plaintiff to challenge applications of
a statute that have not injured him. But see Acheson Ho-