What is the legal effect of a successful &quot;as applied&quot; challenge?
<p>What is the legal effect of a successful "as applied" challenge?  Does it cancel out the whole law or just create new enforcement guidelines which suggest that the applied conduct should not be punished?</p>

<p>It doesn't invalidate the whole law; an as-applied challenge means you're not saying "this law is generally unconstitutional," you're saying "this law cannot constitutionally be applied <em>to me</em>." A successful as-applied challenge means that the court rules that the law can't be applied in the case in question; this sets a precedent that it can't be applied in similar cases, but leaves it intact in general.</p>

constitutional-law