Cite as: 538 U. S. 343 (2003)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
overbreadth doctrine. For this Court has emphasized repeatedly that "where a statute regulates expressive conduct, the scope of the statute does not render it unconstitutional unless its overbreadth is not only real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103, 112 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). See also Houston v. Hill, 482 U. S., at 458 ("Only a statute that is substantially overbroad may be invalidated on its face"); Members of City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 800 (1984) ("[T]he mere fact that one can conceive of some impermissible applications of a statute is not sufficient to render it susceptible to an overbreadth challenge"); New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 771 (1982) ("[A] law should not be invalidated for overbreadth unless it reaches a substantial number of impermissible applications . . ."). The notion that the set of cases identified by the plurality in which convictions might improperly be obtained is sufficiently large to render the statute substantially overbroad is fanciful. The potential improper convictions of which the plurality complains are more appropriately classified as the sort of "marginal applications" of a statute in light of which "facial invalidation is inappropriate." Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733, 760 (1974).4
4 Confronted with the incontrovertible fact that this statute easily passes overbreadth analysis, the plurality is driven to the truly startling assertion that a statute which is not invalid in all of its applications may nevertheless be facially invalidated even if it is not overbroad. The only expression of that proposition that the plurality can find in our jurisprudence appears in footnote dictum in the 5-to-4 opinion in Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 965-966, n. 13 (1984). See id., at 975 (Rehnquist, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Powell and O'Connor, JJ., dissenting). Stare decisis cannot explain the newfound affection for this errant doctrine (even if stare decisis applied to dictum), because the holding of a later opinion (joined by six Justices) flatly repudiated it. See United States v. Salerno, supra, at 745 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by
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