Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/402/611
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:54:32+00:00

Document:
Cincinnati, Ohio, ordinance making it a criminal offense for 'three or more persons to assemble * * * on any of the sidewalks * * * and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by * * *,' which has not been narrowed by any construction of the Ohio Supreme Court, held, violative on its face of the due process standard of vagueness and the constitutional right of free assembly and association. Pp. 16881689.
A Cincinnati, Ohio, ordinance makes it a criminal offense for 'three or more persons to assemble * * * on any of the sidewalks * * * and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by * * *.' 1 The issue before us is whether this ordinance is unconstitutional on its face.
The appellants were convicted of violating the ordinance, and the convictions were ultimately affirmed by a closely divided vote in the Supreme Court of Ohio, upholding the constitutional validity of the ordinance. 21 Ohio St.2d 66, 255 N.E.2d 247. An appeal from that judgment was brought here under 28 U.S.C. 1257(2), 2 and we noted probable jurisdiction, 398 U.S. 902, 90 S.Ct. 1694, 26 L.Ed.2d 60. The record brought before the reviewing courts tells us no more than that the appellant Coates was a student involved in a demonstration and the other appellants were pickets involved in a labor dispute. For throughout this litigation it has been the appellants' position that the ordinance on its face violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Cf. Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U.S. 43, 81 S.Ct. 391, 5 L.Ed.2d 403.
The claim in this case, in part, is that the Cincinnati ordinance is so vague that it may not constitutionally be applied to any conduct. But the ordinance prohibits persons from assembling with others and 'conduct(ing) themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by * * *.' Cincinnati Code of Ordinances § 901L6. Any man of average comprehension should know that some kinds of conduct, such as assault or blocking passage on the street, will annoy others and are clearly covered by the 'annoying conduct' standard of the ordinance. It would be frivolous to say that these and many other kinds of conduct are not within the foreseeable reach of the law.
In Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97, 71 S.Ct. 576, 95 L.Ed. 774 (1951), a police officer was charged under federal statutes with extracting confessions by force and thus, under color of law, depriving the prisoner there involved of rights, privileges, and immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, contrary to 18 U.S.C. 242. The defendant there urged that the standardrights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitutionwas impermissibly vague and, more particularly, that the Court was often so closely divided on illegal-confession issues that no defendant could be expected to know when he was violating the law. The Court's response was that, while application of the statute to less obvious methods of coercion might raise doubts about the adequacy of the standard of guilt, in the case before it, it was 'plain as a pikestaff that the present confessions would not be allowed in evidence whatever the school of thought concerning the scope and meaning of the Due Process Clause.' Id., at 101, 71 S.Ct., at 579. The claim of facial vagueness was thus rejected.
So too in United States v. National Dairy Prod. Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 83 S.Ct. 594, 9 L.Ed.2d 561 (1963), where we considered a statute forbidding sales of goods at 'unreasonably' low prices to injure or eliminate a competitor, 15 U.S.C. 13a, we thought the statute gave a seller adequate notice that sales below cost were illegal. The statute was therefore not facially vague, although it might be difficult to tell whether certain other kinds of conduct fell within this language. We said: 'In determining the sufficiency of the notice a statute must of necessity be examined in the light of the conduct with which a defendant is charged.' Id., at 33, 83 S.Ct., at 598. See also United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 74 S.Ct. 808, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954). This approach is consistent with the host of cases holding that 'one to whom application of a statute is constitutional will not be heard to attack the statute on the ground that impliedly it might also be taken as applying to other persons or other situations in which its application might be unconstitutional.' United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21, 80 S.Ct. 519, 522, 4 L.Ed.2d 524 (1960), and cases there cited.
Our cases, however, including National Dairy, recognize a different approach where the statute at issue purports to regulate or proscribe rights of speech or press protected by the First Amendment. See United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 88 S.Ct. 419, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 87 S.Ct. 675, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967); Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 71 S.Ct. 312, 95 L.Ed. 280 (1951). Although a statute may be neither vague, overbroad, nor otherwise invalid as applied to the conduct charged against a particular defendant, he is permitted to raise its vagueness or unconstitutional overbreadth as applied to others. And if the law is found deficient in one of these respects, it may not be applied to him either, until and unless a satisfactory limiting construction is placed on the statute. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 491492, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 11231124, 14 L.Ed.2d 22 (1965). The statute, in effect, is stricken down on its face. This result is deemed justified since the otherwise continued existence of the statute in unnarrowed form would tend to suppress constitutionally protected rights. See United States v. National Dairy Prod. Corp., supra, 372 U.S. at 36, 83 S.Ct., at 599.
'It shall be unlawful for three or more persons to assemble, except at a public meeting of citizens, on any of the sidewalks, street corners, vacant lots, or mouths of alleys, and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by, or occupants of adjacent buildings. Whoever violates any of the provisions of this section shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars ($50.00), or be imprisoned not less than one (1) nor more than thirty (30) days or both.' Section 901L6, Code of Ordinances of the City of Cincinnati (1956).
'As it is written, the disorderly assembly ordinance could be used to incriminate nearly any group or individual. With little effort, one can imagine many * * * assemblages which, at various times, might annoy some persons in the city of Cleveland. Anyone could become an unwitting participant in a disorderly assembly, and suffer the penalty consequences. It has been left to the police and the courts to decide when and to what extent ordinance Section 13.1124 is applicable. Neither the police nor a citizen can hope to conduct himself in a lawful manner if an ordinance which is designed to regulate conduct does not lay down ascertainable rules and guidelines to govern its enforcement. This ordinance represents an unconstitutional exercise of the police power of the city of Cleveland, and is therefore void.' Cleveland v. Anderson, 13 Ohio App.2d 83, 90, 234 N.E.2d 304, 308309.
'Under the provisions of Sections 17510 and 17511, arrests and prosecutions, as in the present instance, would have been effective as against Edmund Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and others for loitering and congregating in front of Raleigh Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, Virginia, at any time during the summer of 1774 to the great annoyance of Governor Dunsmore and his colonial constables.' City of Toledo v. Sims, 14 Ohio Op.2d 66, 69, 169 N.E.2d 516, 520.

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