Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-7120_p86b.pdf
Page Number: 35

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

17 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

Murray’s  Lessee  v.  Hoboken  Land  &  Improvement  Co.,  18 
How.  272  (1856),  that  “due  process  of  law”  constrains  the
legislative  branch  by  guaranteeing  “usages  and  modes  of 
proceeding  existing  in  the  common  and  statute  law  of 
England,  before  the  emigration  of  our  ancestors,  and
which  are  shown  not  to  have  been  unsuited  to  their  civil 
and  political  condition  by  having  been  acted  on  by  them 
after  the  settlement  of  this  country,”  id.,  at  277.  That 
justification  assumes  further  that  providing  “a  person  of 
ordinary  intelligence  [with]  fair  notice  of  what  is  prohib- 
ited,” Williams, supra, at 304, is one such usage or mode.7 
To  accept  the  vagueness  doctrine  as  founded  in  our
Constitution,  then,  one  must  reject  the  possibility  “that
the  Due  Process  Clause  requires  only  that  our  Govern-
ment must proceed according to the ‘law of the land’—that 
is, according to written constitutional and statutory provi-
sions,” which may be all that the original meaning of this 
provision  demands.  Hamdi  v.  Rumsfeld,  542  U. S.  507, 
589 (2004) (THOMAS, J., dissenting) (some internal quota-
tion  marks  omitted);  accord,  Turner  v.  Rogers,  564  U. S. 

—————— 

7 As a general matter, we should be cautious about relying on general 
theories of “fair notice” in our due process jurisprudence, as they have 
been  exploited  to  achieve  particular  ends.    In  BMW  of  North  America, 
Inc. v. Gore, 517 U. S. 559 (1996), for instance, the Court held that the 
Due  Process  Clause  imposed  limits  on  punitive  damages  because  the 
Clause  guaranteed  “that  a  person  receive  fair  notice  not  only  of  the
conduct that will subject him to punishment, but also of the severity of
the penalty that a State may impose,” id., at 574.  That was true even 
though  “when  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  was  adopted,  punitive
damages  were  undoubtedly  an  established  part  of  the  American  com-
mon  law  of  torts,”  and  “no  particular  procedures  were  deemed  neces-
sary  to  circumscribe  a  jury’s  discretion  regarding  the  award  of  such
damages,  or  their  amount.”    Pacific  Mut.  Life  Ins.  Co.  v.  Haslip,  499 
U. S. 1, 26–27 (1991) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment).  Even under 
the  view  of  the  Due  Process  Clause  articulated  in  Murray’s  Lessee, 
then, we should not allow nebulous principles to supplant more specific, 
historically grounded rules.  See 499 U. S., at 37–38 (opinion of SCALIA, 
J.).