Rodolfo Canales, Jr. v. Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, et al.

In Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2561 (2015), a non-First Amendment case, this Court stated that the “supposed requirement of vagueness in all applications is not a requirement at all, but a tautology: If we hold a statute to be vague, it is vague in all its applications. . . .” The Court reaffirmed its position in Johnson in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S.Ct. 1214 n.3 (2018), another non-First Amendment case. After Johnson and Dimaya, twelve federal circuit courts of appeals and the courts of last resort in twenty states and the District of Columbia are intractably split on what standard to apply in a facial vagueness challenge because this Court “did not precisely define what standard governs facial vagueness challenges.” Robinson v. Government of the District of Columbia, 234 F.Supp.3d 14, 19 (D.D.C. 2017). Contrary to Johnson and Dimaya, the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, at Austin require a statute to be vague in all its applications. The question presented is as follows: Whether a statute with no definitions, explicit standards, reasonably clear guidelines, or objective criteria that allows a court to order indefinite financial support on an ad hoc and subjective basis and which the non-payment of the support is a felony offense, is unconstitutionally vague on its face only if it is vague in all its applications.