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

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

616  F. 3d  85  (CA2  2010).    That  certainly  sounds  like  a
violent felony—until one realizes that Connecticut defines 
this  offense  to  include  taking  part  in  “any  disorder,  dis­
turbance,  strike,  riot  or  other  organized  disobedience  to 
the rules and regulations” of the prison.  Conn. Gen. Stat. 
§53a–179b(a)  (2012).    Who  is  to  say  which  the  ordinary 
“disorder”  most  closely  resembles—a  full-fledged  prison
riot, a food-fight in the prison cafeteria, or a “passive and 
nonviolent  [act]  such  as  disregarding  an  order  to  move,” 
Johnson, 616 F. 3d, at 95 (Parker, J., dissenting)? 

In  all  events,  although  statements  in  some  of  our  opin­
ions  could  be  read  to  suggest  otherwise,  our  holdings
squarely  contradict  the  theory  that  a  vague  provision  is
constitutional  merely  because  there  is  some  conduct  that
clearly falls within the provision’s grasp.  For instance, we 
have  deemed  a  law  prohibiting  grocers  from  charging  an 
“unjust  or  unreasonable  rate”  void  for  vagueness—even
though  charging  someone  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  pound 
of  sugar  would  surely  be  unjust  and  unreasonable.  L. 
Cohen  Grocery  Co.,  255  U. S.,  at  89.    We  have  similarly 
deemed  void  for  vagueness  a  law  prohibiting  people  on 
sidewalks  from  “conduct[ing]  themselves  in  a  manner 
annoying to persons passing by”—even though spitting in
someone’s  face  would  surely  be  annoying.    Coates  v.  Cin-
cinnati,  402  U. S.  611  (1971).    These  decisions  refute  any 
suggestion  that  the  existence  of  some  obviously  risky 
crimes establishes the residual clause’s constitutionality. 

Resisting the force of these decisions, the dissent insists
that “a statute is void for vagueness only if it is vague in
all its applications.”  Post, at 1.  It claims that the prohibi­
tion  of  unjust  or  unreasonable  rates  in  L.  Cohen  Grocery
was “vague in all applications,” even though one can easily 
envision  rates  so  high  that  they  are  unreasonable  by  any 
measure.  Post,  at  16.  It  seems  to  us  that  the  dissent’s 
supposed  requirement  of  vagueness  in  all  applications  is
not  a  requirement  at  all,  but  a  tautology:  If  we  hold  a