Opinion ID: 2966246
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kittery's Other Arguments

Text: Before the district court, Kittery advanced two other arguments -- that sections 3203 and 3204 are unconstitutionally vague, and that the 1990 amendment to section 3204 impliedly repealed section 3203. The district court, finding that Kittery was wrong and so clearly wrong on these issues, disposed of these arguments in a footnote. We agree that these arguments may be easily dispatched. First, as for the void-for-vagueness argument, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that statutes or regulations be sufficiently specific to provide fair notice of what they proscribe. Brasslett v. Cota , 761 F.2d 827, 838 (1st Cir. 1985). The statute must define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Love v. Butler , 952 F.2d 10, 14 (1st Cir. 1991); see also United States v. Marquado , 149 F.3d 36, 41 (1st Cir. 1998). We cannot imagine how the text of section 3203 could be more plain: any person who carries on or engages in the business of buying, selling, exchanging, dealing or trading in new or used motor vehicles . . . on the first day of the week, commonly known and designated as Sunday, is a disorderly person. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 17, § 3203 (West Supp. 2002). The statute indicates with sufficient intelligibility and definiteness what conduct is prohibited, and we cannot discern any way in which the statute lends itself to arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. Kittery also argues that the prohibitions of section 3203 were impliedly repealed by the 1990 amendment to section 3204. We reject this argument as well. Courts do not lightly assume that one statute has implicitly repealed another. Greenless v. Almond , 277 F.3d 601, 608 (1st Cir. 2002); see United States v. Will , 449 U.S. 200, 221 (1980) (As a general rule, repeals by implication are not favored.); State v. London , 162 A.2d 150, 152 (Me. 1960) (It is well settled that a repeal by implication is not favored and will not be upheld in doubtful cases.). Given our reluctance to find an implied repeal, if we can reasonably read the two statutes consonantly, we will. See Rhode Island v. Narragansett Indian Tribe , 19 F.3d 685, 703 (1st Cir. 1994) (In other words, so long as the two statutes, fairly construed, are capable of coexistence, courts should regard each as effective.). The most straightforward and obvious way to read the two statutes in tandem is to treat section 3203 as a narrowly focused prohibition on Sunday motor vehicle sales, and to regard section 3204 as a law of general application, applicable to every kind of business. Thus, retailers who qualify under 3204 may open on Sunday, but they may not sell motor vehicles pursuant to section 3203. (11) See Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co. , 426 U.S. 148, 153 (1976) (It is a basic principle of statutory construction that a statute dealing with a narrow, precise, and specific subject is not submerged by a later enacted statute covering a more generalized spectrum.). We therefore conclude that section 3203 governs the sale of motor vehicles on Sunday, notwithstanding the 1990 amendment to section 3204. (12)