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10 

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

to  “recommend  to  the  jury,  to  find  the  prisoners  guilty  of
making, or endeavouring to make a revolt, however strong
the evidence may be.”  Ibid. 

Such  analysis  does  not  mean  that  federal  courts  be-
lieved  they  had  the  power  to  invalidate  vague  penal  laws
as  unconstitutional.  Indeed,  there  is  good  evidence  that 
courts at the time understood judicial review to consist “of 
a refusal to give a statute effect as operative law in resolv-
ing a case,” a notion quite distinct from our modern prac-
tice  of  “ ‘strik[ing]  down’  legislation.”    Walsh,  Partial  Un-
constitutionality, 85 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 738, 756 (2010).  The 
process of refusing to apply such laws appeared to occur on
a  case-by-case  basis.   For  instance,  notwithstanding  his
doubts  expressed  in  Sharp,  Justice  Washington,  writing 
for  this  Court,  later  rejected  the  argument  that  lower
courts could arrest a judgment under the same ship-revolt 
statute  because  it  “does  not  define  the  offence  of  endeav-
ouring  to  make  a  revolt.”  United  States  v.  Kelly,  11 
Wheat.  417,  418  (1826).    The  Court  explained  that  “it  is 
. . . competent to the Court to give a judicial definition” of 
“the  offence  of  endeavouring  to  make  a  revolt,”  and  that
such definition “consists in the endeavour of the crew of a 
vessel, or any one or more of them, to overthrow the legit-
imate authority of her commander, with intent to remove
him from his command, or against his will to take posses-
sion  of  the  vessel  by  assuming  the  government  and  navi-
gation  of  her,  or  by  transferring  their  obedience  from  the
lawful commander to some other person.”  Id., at 418–419. 
In  dealing  with  statutory  indeterminacy,  federal  courts
saw  themselves  engaged  in  construction,  not  judicial 
review as it is now understood. 3 
—————— 

3 Early American state courts also  sometimes refused  to apply  a law
they found completely unintelligible, even outside of the penal context. 
In  one  antebellum  decision,  the  Pennsylvania  Supreme  Court  did  not 
even  attempt  to  apply  a  statute  that  gave  the  Pennsylvania  state 
treasurer  “ ‘as  many  votes’ ”  in  state  bank  elections  as  “ ‘were  held  by