Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/333/507/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 16:21:17+00:00

Document:
Subsection 2 of §1141 of the New York Penal Law, as construed by the State Court of Appeals to prohibit distribution of a magazine principally made up of news or stories of criminal deeds of bloodshed or lust so massed as to become vehicles for inciting violent and depraved crimes against the person, held so vague and indefinite as to violate the Fourteenth Amendment by prohibiting acts within the protection of the guaranty of free speech and press. Pp. 333 U. S. 508-520.
294 N. Y. 545, 63 N. E. 2d 98, reversed.
Appellant was convicted for having certain magazines in his possession with intent to sell them, in violation of subsection 2 of §1141 of the New York Penal Law. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York affirmed. 268 App.Div. 30, 48 N.Y.Supp. 230. The Court of Appeals of New York affirmed, 294 N.Y. 545, 63 N.E.2d 98, and amended its remittitur to the trial court so as to show that it had held that the conviction did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. 294 N.Y. 979, 63 N.E.2d 713. Reversed, p. 333 U. S. 520.
"§ 1141. Obscene prints and articles"
"1. A person . . . who,"
"2. Prints, utters, publishes, sells, lends, gives away, distributes or shows, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away, distribute or show, or otherwise offers for sale, loan, gift or distribution, any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper or other printed paper devoted to the publication, and principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime; . . ."
"Is guilty of a misdemeanor, . . . "
Upon appeal from the Court of Special Sessions, the trial court, the conviction was upheld by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, 268 App.Div. 30, 48 N.Y.S.2d 230, whose judgment was later upheld by the New York Court of Appeals. 294 N.Y. 545, 63 N.E.2d 98.
The validity of the statute was drawn in question in the state courts as repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in that it denied the accused the right of freedom of speech and press, protected against state interference by the Fourteenth Amendment. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 268 U. S. 666; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 328 U. S. 335. The principle of a free press covers distribution as well as publication. Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, 303 U. S. 452. As the validity of the section was upheld in a final judgment by the highest court of the state against this constitutional challenge, this Court has jurisdiction under Judicial Code, § 237(a). This appeal was argued at the October 1945 Term of this Court and set down for reargument before a full bench at the October 1946 Term. It was then reargued and again set down for further reargument at the present term.
protected by the principles of the First Amendment violates an accused's rights under procedural due process and freedom of speech or press. Where the alleged vagueness of a state statute had been cured by an opinion of the state court, confining a statute, Rem. & Bal.Code, § 2564, punishing the circulation of publications "having a tendency to encourage or incite the commission of any crime" to "encouraging an actual breach of law," this Court affirmed a conviction under the stated limitation of meaning. The accused publication was read as advocating the commission of the crime of indecent exposure. Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 236 U. S. 277.
We recognize the importance of the exercise of a state's police power to minimize all incentives to crime, particularly in the field of sanguinary or salacious publications with their stimulation of juvenile delinquency. Although we are dealing with an aspect of a free press in its relation to public morals, the principles of unrestricted distribution of publications admonish us of the particular importance of a maintenance of standards of certainty in the field of criminal prosecution for violation of statutory prohibitions against distribution. We do not accede to appellee's suggestion that the constitutional protection for a free press applies only to the exposition of ideas. The line between the informing and the entertaining is too elusive for the protection of that basic right. Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man's amusement teaches another's doctrine. Though we can see nothing of any possible value to society in these magazines, they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature. Cf. Hannegan v. Esquire, 327 U. S. 146, 327 U. S. 153, 327 U. S. 158. They are equally subject to control if they are lewd, indecent, obscene or profane. Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 96 U. S. 736; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568.
The section of the Penal Law, § 1141(2), under which the information was filed is a part of the "indecency" article of that law. It comes under the caption "Obscene prints and articles." Other sections make punishable various acts of indecency. For example, § 1141(1), a section not here in issue but under the same caption, punishes the distribution of obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting magazines. [Footnote 2] Section 1141(2) originally was aimed at the protection of minors from the distribution of publications devoted principally to criminal news and stories of bloodshed, lust or crime. [Footnote 3] It was later broadened to include all the population and other phases of production and possession.
process for uncertainty under the Fourteenth Amendment.
"devoted to the publication or principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or pictures, and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust, or crime."
"selection of immoralities so treated as to excite attention and interest sufficient to command circulation for a paper devoted mainly to the collection of such matters."
"whenever the objectionable matter is a leading feature of the paper, or special attention is devoted to the publication of the prohibited items,"
the court felt that it failed to state the full meaning of the statute and reversed. As in the Strohm case, denial of due process for uncertainty was not raised.
"can be so massed as to become vehicles for inciting violent and depraved crimes against the person, and, in that case, such publications are indecent or obscene in an admissible sense, . . ."
"In short, we have here before us accumulations of details of heinous wrongdoing which plainly carried an appeal to that portion of the public who (as many recent records remind us) are disposed to take to vice for its own sake."
"In the nature of things, there can be no more precise test of written indecency or obscenity than the continuing and changeable experience of the community as to what types of books are likely to bring about the corruption of public morals or other analogous injury to the public order. Consequently, a question as to whether a particular publication is indecent or obscene in that sense is a question of the times which must be determined as matter of fact, unless the appearances are thought to be necessarily harmless from the standpoint of public order or morality."
"So, when reasonable men may fairly classify a publication as necessarily or naturally indecent or obscene, a mistaken view by the publisher as to its character or tendency is immaterial."
interpretation. Compare Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451. As lewdness in publications is punishable under § 1141(1) and the usual run of stories of bloodshed, such as detective stories, are excluded, it is the massing as an incitation to crime that becomes the important element.
Acts of gross and open indecency or obscenity, injurious to public morals, are indictable at common law as violative of the public policy that requires from the offender retribution for acts that flaunt accepted standards of conduct. 1 Bishop, Criminal Law, 9th Ed., § 500; Wharton, Criminal Law, 12th Ed., § 16. When a legislative body concludes that the mores of the community call for an extension of the impermissible limits, an enactment aimed at the evil is plainly within its power, if it does not transgress the boundaries fixed by the Constitution for freedom of expression. The standards of certainty in statutes punishing for offenses is higher than in those depending primarily upon civil sanction for enforcement. The crime "must be defined with appropriate definiteness." Pierce v. United States, 314 U. S. 306, 314 U. S. 311; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296. There must be ascertainable standards of guilt. Men of common intelligence cannot be required to guess at the meaning of the enactment. [Footnote 4] The vagueness may be from uncertainty in regard to persons within the scope of the act, Lanzetta v.
"any act of any kind whatsoever which has for its purpose or aim the destruction of organized government, federal, state or municipal, or to do or cause to be done any act which is antagonistic to or in opposition to such organized government, or incite or attempt to incite revolution or opposition to such organized government"
"Under its terms, no distinction is made between the man who advocates a change in the form of our government by constitutional means, or advocates the abandonment of organized government by peaceful methods, and the man who advocates the overthrow of our government by armed revolution, or other form of force and violence."
"Where the statute uses words of no determinative meaning, or the language is so general and indefinite as to embrace not only acts commonly recognized as reprehensible, but also others which it is unreasonable to presume were intended to be made criminal, it will be declared void for uncertainty."
speech, statement or declaration, which in any way incites, counsels, promotes, or advocates hatred, abuse, violence or hostility against any group or groups of persons residing or being in this state by reason of race, color, religion or manner of worship, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
"It is our view that the statute, supra, by punitive sanction, tends to restrict what one may say lest, by one's utterances, there be incited or advocated hatred, hostility or violence against a group 'by reason of race, color, religion or manner of worship.' But additionally and looking now to strict statutory construction, is the statute definite, clear and precise so as to be free from the constitutional infirmity of the vague and indefinite? That the terms 'hatred,' 'abuse,' 'hostility,' are abstract and indefinite admits of no contradiction. When do they arise? Is it to be left to a jury to conclude beyond reasonable doubt when the emotion of hatred or hostility is aroused in the mind of the listener as a result of what a speaker has said? Nothing in our criminal law can be invoked to justify so wide a discretion. The Criminal Code must be definite and informative, so that there may be no doubt in the mind of the citizenry that the interdicted act or conduct is illicit."
reversal of the court primarily charged with responsibility to protect persons from conviction under a vague state statute.
The impossibility of defining the precise line between permissible uncertainty in statutes caused by describing crimes by words well understood through long use in the criminal law -- obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting -- and the unconstitutional vagueness that leaves a person uncertain as to the kind of prohibited conduct -- massing stories to incite crime -- has resulted in three arguments of this case in this Court. The legislative bodies in draftsmanship obviously have the same difficulty as do the judicial in interpretation. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, courts must do their best to determine whether or not the vagueness is of such a character "that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning." Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U. S. 385, 269 U. S. 391. The entire text of the statute or the subjects dealt with may furnish an adequate standard. [Footnote 8] The present case as to a vague statute abridging free speech involves the circulation of only vulgar magazines. The next may call for decision as to free expression of political views in the light of a statute intended to punish subversive activities.
crimes against the person . . . not necessarily . . . sexual passion,"
"It leaves open, therefore, the widest conceivable inquiry, the scope of which no one can foresee and the result of which no one can foreshadow or adequately guard against."
not seem to us that an honest distributor of publications could know when he might be held to have ignored such a prohibition. Collections of tales of war horrors, otherwise unexceptionable, might well be found to be "massed" so as to become "vehicles for inciting violent and depraved crimes." Where a statute is so vague as to make criminal an innocent act, a conviction under it cannot be sustained. Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 301 U. S. 259.
To say that a state may not punish by such a vague statute carries no implication that it may not punish circulation of objectionable printed matter, assuming that it is not protected by the principles of the First Amendment, by the use of apt words to describe the prohibited publications. Section 1141, subsection 1, quoted in note 2 is an example. Neither the states nor Congress are prevented by the requirement of specificity from carrying out their duty of eliminating evils to which, in their judgment, such publications give rise.
"And I, the District Attorney aforesaid, by this information, further accuse the said defendant of the Crime of Unlawfully Possessing Obscene Prints, committed as follows:"
"The said defendant, on the day and in the year aforesaid, at the city and in the county aforesaid, with intent to sell, lend, give away and show, unlawfully did offer for sale and distribution, and have in his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away and show, a certain obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent and disgusting magazine entitled 'Headquarters Detective, True Cases from the Police Blotter, June 1940,' the same being devoted to the publication and principally made up of criminal news, police reports, and accounts of criminal deeds, and pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust and crime."
"§ 1141. . . . 1. A person who sells, lends, gives away, distributes or shows, or offers to sell, lend, give away, distribute, or show, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend, distribute or give away, or to show, or advertises in any manner, or who otherwise offers for loan, gift, sale or distribution, any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, picture, drawing, photograph, figure or image, or any written or printed matter of an indecent character; . . ."
Ch. 380, New York Laws 1884; ch. 692, New York Laws 1887; ch. 925, New York Laws 1941.
"But it will be enough for present purposes to say generally that the decisions of the court, upholding statutes as sufficiently certain, rested upon the conclusion that they employed words or phrases having a technical or other special meaning, well enough known to enable those within their reach to correctly apply them, . . . or a well settled common law meaning, notwithstanding an element of degree in the definition as to which estimates might differ, . . . or, as broadly stated by Mr. Chief Justice White in United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 255 U. S. 92,"
"that, for reasons found to result either from the text of the statutes involved or the subjects with which they dealt, a standard of some sort was afforded."
United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 255 U. S. 89-93; Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Commission, 286 U. S. 210, 286 U. S. 242; Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553, 283 U. S. 564.
Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86.
United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1; Gorin v. United States, 312 U. S. 19.
Hygrade Provision Co. v. Sherman, 266 U. S. 497, 266 U. S. 501; Mutual Film Corp. v. Ohio Industrial Commission, 236 U. S. 230, 236 U. S. 245-246; Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 325 U. S. 94-100.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, joined by MR. JUSTICE JACKSON and MR. JUSTICE BURTON, dissenting.
books is reinforced by their distribution throughout the country and the time range of the adoption of the measure. [Footnote 2/2] Cf. Hughes, C.J., in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, 300 U. S. 399.
2. Ill.Ann.Stat.Smith-Hurd, c. 38, § 106, derived from Act of June 3, 1889, p. 114, § 1 (minors).
3. Iowa Code 1946, § 725.8, derived from 21 Acts, Gen.Assembly, c. 177, § 4 (1886) (minors).
4. Gen.Stat.Kan.1935, § 21-1102, derived from L.1886, c. 101, § 1.
5. Ky.Rev.Stat.1946, § 436.110, derived from L.1891-93, c. 182, § 217 (1893) (similar).
6. Rev.Stat.Maine 1944, c. 121, § 27, derived from L.1885, c. 348, § 1 (minors).
7. Ann.Code Md.1939, Art. 27, § 496, derived from L.1894, c. 271, § 2.
8. Ann.Laws Mass. 1933, c. 272, § 30, derived from Acts and Resolves 1885, c. 305 (minors).
9. Mich.Stat.Ann.1938, § 28.576, Pub. Laws 1931, Act 328, § 344, derived from L.1885, No. 138.
10. Minn.St.1945 and M.S.A., § 617.72, derived from L. 1885, c. 268, § 1 (minors).
11. Mo.Rev.Stat.1939 § 4656, Mo.R.S.A., derived from Act of April 2, 1885, p. 146, § 1 (minors).
13. Rev.Stat.Neb.1943, § 28-924, derived from L.1887, c. 113, § 4 (minors).
14. N.Y.Consol.L. c. 40 (1944), Penal Law, Art. 106, § 1141(2), derived from L.1884, c. 380.
15. N.D.Rev.Code 1943, § 12-2109, derived from L.1895, c. 84, § 1 (similar).
16. Ohio Code Ann.Throckmorton 1940, § 13035, derived from 82 Sess.L. p. 184 (1885) (similar).
17. Or.Comp.L.Ann.1940, § 23-924, derived from Act of Feb. 25, 1885, p. 126 (similar).
18. 18 Pa.Stat.Ann. § 4524, derived from L.1887, P.L. 84, § 2.
19. Rev.Stat.Wash.Remington, 1932, § 2459(2), derived from L.1909, c. 249, § 207(2).
20. Wis.Stat.1945, § 351.38(4), derived from L.1901, c. 256.
1. Colo.Stat.Ann.1935, c. 48, § 217, derived from Act of April 9, 1885, p. 172, § 1.
2. Ind.Stat.Ann.1934, § 2607, Burns' Ann.St. § 10-2805, derived from L.1895, c. 109.
3. S.D.Code 1939, § 13.1722(4), derived from L.1913, c. 241, § 4.
4. Tex.Stat.Vernon, 1936, Penal Code, Art. 527, derived from Acts 1897, c. 116.
the Court invalidates such legislation of almost half the States of the Union. The destructiveness of the decision is even more far-reaching. This is not one of those situations where power is denied to the States because it belongs to the Nation. These enactments are invalidated on the ground that they fall within the prohibitions of the "vague contours" of the Due Process Clause. The decision thus operates equally as a limitation upon Congressional authority to deal with crime, and, more especially, with juvenile delinquency. These far-reaching consequences result from the Court's belief that what New York, among a score of States, has prohibited, is so empty of meaning that no one desirous of obeying the law could fairly be aware that he was doing that which was prohibited.
Fundamental fairness, of course, requires that people be given notice of what to avoid. If the purpose of a statute is undisclosed, if the legislature's will has not been revealed, it offends reason that punishment should be meted out for conduct which at the time of its commission was not forbidden to the understanding of those who wished to observe the law. This requirement of fair notice that there is a boundary of prohibited conduct not to be overstepped is included in the conception of "due process of law." The legal jargon for such failure to give forewarning is to say that the statute is void for "indefiniteness."
the quantitatively ascertainable elements of much of natural science, legislation is greatly concerned with the multiform psychological complexities of individual and social conduct. Accordingly, the demands upon legislation, and its responses, are variable and multiform. That which may appear to be too vague and even meaningless as to one subject matter may be as definite as another subject matter of legislation permits, if the legislative power to deal with such a subject is not to be altogether denied. The statute books of every State are full of instances of what may look like unspecific definitions of crime, of the drawing of wide circles of prohibited conduct.
In these matters, legislatures are confronted with a dilemma. If a law is framed with narrow particularity, too easy opportunities are afforded to nullify the purposes of the legislation. If the legislation is drafted in terms so vague that no ascertainable line is drawn in advance between innocent and condemned conduct, the purpose of the legislation cannot be enforced, because no purpose is defined. It is not merely in the enactment of tax measures that the task of reconciling these extremes -- of avoiding throttling particularity or unfair generality -- is one of the most delicate and difficult confronting legislators. The reconciliation of these two contradictories is necessarily an empiric enterprise largely depending on the nature of the particular legislative problem.
draftsmen. Answers to these questions are not to be found in any legislative manual, nor in the work of great legislative draftsmen. They are not to be found in the opinions of this Court. These are questions of judgment, peculiarly within the responsibility and the competence of legislatures. The discharge of that responsibility should not be set at naught by abstract notions about "indefiniteness."
The action of this Court today in invalidating legislation having the support of almost half the States of the Union rests essentially on abstract notions about "indefiniteness." The Court's opinion could have been written by one who had never read the issues of "Headquarters Detective" which are the basis of the prosecution before us, who had never deemed their contents as relevant to the form in which the New York legislation was cast, had never considered the bearing of such "literature" on juvenile delinquency, in the allowable judgment of the legislature. Such abstractions disregard the considerations that may well have moved and justified the State in not being more explicit than these State enactments are. Only such abstract notions would reject the judgment of the States that they have outlawed what they have a right to outlaw, in the effort to curb crimes of lust and violence, and that they have not done it so recklessly as to occasion real hazard that other publications will thereby be inhibited, or also be subjected to prosecution.
various alleged "causes" of crime. Bibliographies of criminology reveal a depressing volume of writings on theories of causation. See e.g., Kuhlman, A Guide to Material on Crime and Criminal Justice (1929) Item Nos. 292 to 1211; Culver, Bibliography of Crime and Criminal Justice (1927-1931) and Item Nos. 877-1475, (1932-1937) Item Nos. 799-1560. Is it to be seriously questioned, however, that the State of New York, or the Congress of the United States, may make incitement to crime itself an offense? He too would indeed be a bold man who denied that incitement may be caused by the written word no less than by the spoken. If "the Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics" (Holmes, J., dissenting in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 198 U. S. 75), neither does it enact the psychological dogmas of the Spencerian era. The painful experience which resulted from confusing economic dogmas with constitutional edicts ought not to be repeated by finding constitutional barriers to a State's policy regarding crime because it may run counter to our inexpert psychological assumptions or offend our presuppositions regarding incitements to crime in relation to the curtailment of utterance. This Court is not ready, I assume, to pronounce on causative factors of mental disturbance and their relation to crime. Without formally professing to do so, it may actually do so by invalidating legislation dealing with these problems as too "indefinite."
the best of literature." Wholly neutral futilities, of course, come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons. But to say that these magazines have "nothing of any possible value to society" is only half the truth. This merely denies them goodness. It disregards their mischief. As a result of appropriate judicial determination, these magazines were found to come within the prohibition of the law against inciting "violent and depraved crimes against the person," and the defendant was convicted because he exposed for sale such materials. The essence of the Court's decision is that it gives publications which have "nothing of any possible value to society" constitutional protection, but denies to the States the power to prevent the grave evils to which, in their rational judgment, such publications give rise. The legislatures of New York and the other States were concerned with these evils, and not with neutral abstractions of harmlessness. Nor was the New York Court of Appeals merely resting, as it might have done, on a deep-seated conviction as to the existence of an evil and as to the appropriate means for checking it. That court drew on its experience, as revealed by "many recent records" of criminal convictions before it for its understanding of the practical concrete reasons that led the legislatures of a score of States to pass the enactments now here struck down.
depraved crimes against the person."
"In his evidence on the voir dire, Graham (a friend of the defendant and apparently a very reliable witness) said that he knew Boyd Sinclair (the murderer) and his moods very well, and that he just left him; that Boyd had on a number of occasions outlined plans for embarking on a life of crime, plan based mainly on magazine thrillers which he was reading at the time. They included the obtaining of a motor car and an automatic gun."
Sinclair v. The King, 73 Comm.L.R. 316, 330.
"devoted to and principally made up of criminal news or police reports or accounts of criminal deeds, regardless of the manner of treatment."
as in the case of young Boyd Sinclair, deeply embedded, unconscious impulses may be discharged into destructive and often fatal action.
"Whereas, we believe that the destructive and adventurous potentialities of boys and adolescents, and of adults of weak character or those leading a drab existence, are often stimulated by collections of pictures and stories of criminal deeds of bloodshed or lust so massed as to incite to violent and depraved crimes against the person; and"
"Whereas, we believe that such juveniles and other susceptible characters do in fact commit such crimes at least partly because incited to do so by such publications, the purpose of which is to exploit such susceptible characters; and"
qualified to express opinions regarding criminal psychology and not disproved by others; and"
"Whereas, in any event there is nothing of possible value to society in such publications, so that there is no gain to the State, whether in edification or enlightenment or amusement or good of any kind; and"
"Whereas, the possibility of harm by restricting free utterance through harmless publications is too remote and too negligible a consequence of dealing with the evil publications with which we are here concerned;"
"Be it therefore enacted that --"
Unless we can say that such beliefs are intrinsically not reasonably entertainable by a legislature, or that the record disproves them, or that facts of which we must take judicial notice preclude the legislature from entertaining such views, we must assume that the legislature was dealing with a real problem touching the commission of crime, and not with fanciful evils, and that the measure was adapted to the serious evils to which it was addressed. The validity of such legislative beliefs or their importance ought not to be rejected out of hand.
"We understand the State court, by implication, at least, to have read the statute as confined to encouraging an actual breach of law. Therefore, the argument that this act is both an unjustifiable restriction of liberty and too vague for a criminal law must fail.
It does not appear, and is not likely, that the statute will be construed to prevent publications merely because they tend to produce unfavorable opinions of a particular statute or of law in general. In this present case, the disrespect for law that was encouraged was disregard of it -- an overt breach and technically criminal act. It would be in accord with the usages of English to interpret disrespect as manifested disrespect, as active disregard going beyond the line drawn by the law. That is all that has happened as yet, and we see no reason to believe that the statute will be stretched beyond that point."
"If the statute should be construed as going no farther than it is necessary to go in order to bring the defendant within it, there is no trouble with it for want of definiteness."
Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 236 U. S. 277.
In short, this Court respected the policy of a State by recognizing the practical application which the State court gave to the statute in the case before it. This Court rejected constitutional invalidity based on a remote possibility that the language of the statute, abstractly considered, might be applied with unbridled looseness.
from which to refrain. Legislation must also avoid so tight a phrasing as to leave the area for evasion ampler than that which is condemned. How to escape, on the one hand, having a law rendered futile because no standard is afforded by which conduct is to be judged, and, on the other, a law so particularized as to defeat itself through the opportunities it affords for evasion, involves an exercise of judgment which is at the heart of the legislative process. It calls for the accommodation of delicate factors. But this accommodation is for the legislature to make and for us to respect, when it concerns a subject so clearly within the scope of the police power as the control of crime. Here we are asked to declare void the law which expresses the balance so struck by the legislature, on the ground that the legislature has not expressed its policy clearly enough. That is what it gets down to.
been transformed, and how largely the transformation is still in a pioneer stage, I should suppose that the Court would feel even less confidence in its views on psychological issues. At all events, it ought not to prefer its psychological views -- for, at bottom, judgment on psychological matters underlies the legal issue in this case -- to those implicit in an impressive body of enactments and explicitly given by the New York Court of Appeals, out of the abundance of its experience, as the reason for sustaining the legislation which the Court is nullifying.
But we are told that New York has not expressed a policy, that what looks like a law is not a law, because it is so vague as to be meaningless. Suppose, then, that the New York legislature now wishes to meet the objection of the Court. What standard of definiteness does the Court furnish the New York legislature in finding indefiniteness in the present law? Should the New York legislature enumerate by name the publications which, in its judgment, are "inciting violent and depraved crimes"? Should the New York legislature spell out in detail the ingredients of stories or pictures which accomplish such "inciting"? What is there in the condemned law that leaves men in the dark as to what is meant by publications that exploit "criminal deeds of bloodshed or lust," thereby "inciting violent and depraved crimes"? What real risk do the Conan Doyles, the Edgar Allen Poes, the William Rougheads, the ordinary tribe of detective story writers, their publishers, or their booksellers, run?
"the law is full of instances where a man's fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree. If his judgment is wrong, not only may he incur a fine or a short imprisonment, as here; he may incur the penalty of death."
Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 229 U. S. 377. To which it is countered that such uncertainty not in the standard, but in its application, is not objectionable in legislation having a long history, but is inadmissible as to more recent laws. Is this not another way of saying that, when new circumstances or new insights lead to new legislation, the Due Process Clause denies to legislatures the power to frame legislation with such regard for the subject matter as legislatures had in the past? When neither the Constitution nor legislation has formulated legal principles for courts, and they must pronounce them, they find it impossible to impose upon themselves such a duty of definiteness as this decision exacts from legislatures.
The Court has been led into error, if I may respectfully suggest, by confusing want of certainty as to the outcome of different prosecutions for similar conduct with want of definiteness in what the law prohibits. But diversity in result for similar conduct in different trials under the same statute is an unavoidable feature of criminal justice. So long as these diversities are not designed consequences, but due merely to human fallibility, they do not deprive persons of due process of law.
and the duty to protect the innocent from being punished for crossing the line of wrongdoing without awareness, it is relevant to note that this legislation has been upheld as putting law-abiding people on sufficient notice by a court that has been astutely alert to the hazards of vaguely phrased penal laws and zealously protective of individual rights against "indefiniteness." See, e.g., People v. Phyfe, 136 N.Y. 554, 32 N.E. 978; People v. Briggs, 193 N.Y. 457, 86 N.E. 522; People v. Shakun, 251 N.Y. 107, 167 N.E. 187; People v. Grogan, 260 N.Y. 138, 183 N.E. 273. The circumstances of this case make it particularly relevant to remind, even against a confident judgment of the invalidity of legislation on the vague ground of "indefiniteness," that certitude is not the test of certainty. If men may reasonably differ whether the State has given sufficient notice that it is outlawing the exploitation of criminal potentialities, that, in itself, ought to be sufficient, according to the repeated pronouncements of this Court, to lead us to abstain from denying power to the States. And it deserves to be repeated that the Court is not denying power to the States in order to leave it to the Nation. It is denying power to both. By this decision, Congress is denied power, as part of its effort to grapple with the problems of juvenile delinquency in Washington, to prohibit what twenty States have seen fit to outlaw. Moreover, a decision like this has a destructive momentum much beyond the statutes of New York and of the other States immediately involved. Such judicial nullification checks related legislation which the States might deem highly desirable as a matter of policy, and this Court might not find unconstitutional.
commend themselves to judges, can hardly be deemed offensive to reason itself. It is not merely in the domain of economics that the legislative judgment should not be subtly supplanted by the judicial judgment.
"I cannot believe that the Amendment was intended to give us carte blanche to embody our economic or moral beliefs in its prohibitions."
So wrote Mr. Justice Holmes in summing up his protest for nearly thirty years against using the Fourteenth Amendment to cut down the constitutional rights of the States. Baldwin v. Missouri, 281 U. S. 586, 281 U. S. 595 (dissenting).
Indeed, Mr. Justice Holmes is a good guide in deciding this case. In three opinions in which, speaking for the Court, he dealt with the problem of "indefiniteness" in relation to the requirement of due process, he indicated the directions to be followed and the criteria to be applied. Pursuit of those directions and due regard for the criteria require that we hold that the New York legislature has not offended the limitations which the Due Process Clause has placed upon the power of States to counteract avoidable incitements to violent and depraved crimes.
"the law is full of instances where a man's fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree."
may derive definiteness from past usage. How much definiteness "the common law of restraint of trade" has imparted to "the rule of reason," which is the guiding consideration in applying the Sherman Law, may be gathered from the fact that, since the Nash case, this Court has been substantially divided in at least a dozen cases in determining whether a particular situation fell within the undefined limits of the Sherman Law. [Footnote 2/4] The Court's opinion in this case invokes this doctrine of "permissible uncertainty" in criminal statutes as to words that have had long use in the criminal law, and assumes that "long use" gives assurance of clear meaning. I do not believe that the law reports permit one to say that statutes condemning "restraint of trade" or "obscenity" are much more unequivocal guides to conduct than this statute furnishes, nor do they cast less risk of "estimating rightly" what judges and juries will decide, than does this legislation.
"to guess, on peril of indictment, what the community would have given for them [commodities] if the continually changing conditions were other than they are, to an uncertain extent; to divine prophetically what the reaction of only partially determinate facts would be upon the imaginations and desires of purchasers, is to exact gifts that mankind does not possess."
234 U.S. at 234 U. S. 223-224. The vast difference between this Kentucky statute and the New York law, so far as forewarning goes, needs no laboring.
will be cases very near each other on opposite sides. The precise course of the line may be uncertain, but no one can come near it without knowing that he does so, if he thinks, and if he does so, it is familiar to the criminal law to make him take the risk. Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373."
Only a word needs to be said regarding Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451. The case involved a New Jersey statute, N.J.S.A. 2:136-4, of the type that seek to control "vagrancy." These statutes are in a class by themselves, in view of the familiar abuses to which they are put. See Note, 47 Col.L.Rev. 613, 625. Definiteness is designedly avoided, so as to allow the net to be cast at large, to enable men to be caught who are vaguely undesirable in the eyes of police and prosecution, although not chargeable with any particular offense. In short, these "vagrancy statutes," and laws against "gangs," are not fenced in by the text of the statute or by the subject matter so as to give notice of conduct to be avoided.
And so I conclude that New York, in the legislation before us, has not exceeded its constitutional power to control crime. The Court strikes down laws that forbid publications inciting to crime, and as such not within the constitutional immunity of free speech, because, in effect, it does not trust State tribunals, nor ultimately this Court, to safeguard inoffensive publications from condemnation under this legislation. Every legislative limitation upon utterance, however valid, may, in a particular case, serve as an inroad upon the freedom of speech which the Constitution protects. See, e.g., Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, and Mr. Justice Holmes' dissent in Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 250 U. S. 624. The decision of the Court is concerned solely with the validity of the statute, and this opinion is restricted to that issue.
* Since this opinion was filed, Conn.L.1935, c. 216, repealing this provision, has been called to my attention.
"1141. Obscene prints and articles"
"1. A person . . . who"
"2. Prints, utters, publishes, sells, lends, gives away, distributes or shows, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away, distribute or show, or otherwise offers for sale, loan, gift or distribution, any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper or other printed paper devoted to the publication, and principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime;"
Of course, we have no statistics or other reliable knowledge as to the incidence of violations of these laws, nor as to the extent of their enforcement. Suffice it to say that the highest courts of three of the most industrialized States -- Connecticut, Illinois, and New York -- have had this legislation before them.
This assumes a similar construction for essentially the same laws.
See, e.g., United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., 247 U. S. 32; United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U. S. 417; United States v. Reading Co., 253 U. S. 26; American Column & Lumber Co. v. United States, 257 U. S. 377; Maple Flooring Mfrs' Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 563; Cement Mfrs' Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 588; United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392; Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 U. S. 208; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150; United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533; Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1; United States v. Line Material Co., 333 U. S. 287.

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