Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/527-u-s-41-605506610
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:34:25+00:00

Document:
Party Name: CITY OF CHICAGO v. MORALES et al.
177 Ill.2d 440, 687 N.E.2d 53, affirmed.
are insufficient. Finally, the Illinois Supreme Court is correct that General Order 92-4 is not a sufficient limitation on police discretion. See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 575. Pp. 60-64.
1. It was not improper for the state courts to conclude that the ordinance, which covers a significant amount of activity in addition to the intimidating conduct that is its factual predicate, is invalid on its face. An enactment may be attacked on its face as impermissibly vague if, inter alia, it fails to establish standards for the police and public that are sufficient to guard against the arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S., at 358. The freedom to loiter for innocent purposes is part of such "liberty." See, e. g., Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 126. The ordinance's vagueness makes a facial challenge appropriate. This is not an enactment that simply regulates business behavior and contains a scienter requirement. See Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 499. It is a criminal law that contains no mens rea requirement, see Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 395, and infringes on constitutionally protected rights, see id., at 391. Pp. 51-56.
2. Because the ordinance fails to give the ordinary citizen adequate notice of what is forbidden and what is permitted, it is impermissibly vague. See, e. g., Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 614. The term "loiter" may have a common and accepted meaning, but the ordinance's definition of that term"to remain in any one place with no apparent purpose"does not. It is difficult to imagine how any Chicagoan standing in a public place with a group of people would know if he or she had an "apparent purpose." This vagueness about what loitering is covered and what is not dooms the ordinance. The city's principal response to the adequate notice concernthat loiterers are not subject to criminal sanction until after they have disobeyed a dispersal orderis unpersuasive for at least two reasons. First, the fair notice requirement's purpose is to enable the ordinary citizen to conform his or her conduct to the law. See Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453. A dispersal order, which is issued only after prohibited conduct has occurred, cannot retroactively provide adequate notice of the boundary between the permissible and the impermissible applications of the ordinance. Second, the dispersal order's terms compound the inadequacy of the notice afforded by the ordinance, which vaguely requires that the officer "order all such persons to disperse and remove themselves from the area," and thereby raises a host of questions as to the duration and distinguishing features of the loiterers' separation. Pp. 56-60.
Justice O'Connor, joined by Justice Breyer, concluded that, as construed by the Illinois Supreme Court, the Chicago ordinance is unconstitutionally vague because it lacks sufficient minimal standards to guide law enforcement officers; in particular, it fails to provide any standard by which police can judge whether an individual has an " apparent purpose." This vagueness alone provides a sufficient ground for affirming the judgment below, and there is no need to consider the other issues briefed by the parties and addressed by the plurality. It is important to courts and legislatures alike to characterize more clearly the narrow scope of the Court's holding. Chicago still has reasonable alternatives to combat the very real threat posed by gang intimidation and violence, including, e. g., adoption of laws that directly prohibit the congregation of gang members to intimidate residents, or the enforcement of existing laws with that effect. Moreover, the ordinance could have been construed more narrowly to avoid the vagueness problem, by, e. g., adopting limitations that restrict the ordinance's criminal penalties to gang members or interpreting the term "apparent purpose" narrowly and in light of the Chicago City Council's findings. This Court, however, cannot impose a limiting construction that a state supreme court has declined to adopt. See, e. g., Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 355-356, n. 4. The Illinois Supreme Court misapplied this Court's precedents, particularly Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, to the extent it read them as requiring it to hold the ordinance vague in all of its applications. Pp. 64-69.
member, and that he remain in the public place "with no apparent purpose." Nor does it violate this Court's usual rules governing facial challenges to forbid the city to apply the unconstitutional ordinance in this case. There is no way to distinguish in the ordinance's terms between one application of unlimited police discretion and another. It is unconstitutional, not because a policeman applied his discretion wisely or poorly in a particular case, but rather because the policeman enjoys too much discretion in every case. And if every application of the ordinance represents an exercise of unlimited discretion, then the ordinance is invalid in all its applications. See Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453. Contrary to Justice Scalia's suggestion, the ordinance does not escape facial invalidation simply because it may provide fair warning to some individual defendants that it prohibits the conduct in which they are engaged. This ordinance is unconstitutional, not because it provides insufficient notice, but because it does not provide sufficient minimal standards to guide the police. See Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 614. Pp. 70-73.

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