Opinion ID: 2078371
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evolution and General Principles

Text: It is axiomatic that a proscriptive law must provide people with reasonable notice of the conduct it prohibits. Defendant's challenge goes to the core of this precept. While he properly couches his argument in due process terms, courts had recognized the concept long before it took on constitutional status under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The point was made in this country's jurisprudential infancy, when almost two centuries ago a court explained that, as a rule of statutory construction, indefiniteness is a ground for nullification of penal laws. The court said: It should be a principle of every criminal code, and certainly belongs to ours, that no person be adjudged guilty of an offence unless it be created and promulgated in terms which leave no reasonable doubt of their meaning ( The Enterprise, 1 Paine 32, 8 F Cas 732, 734 [1810]). The Supreme Court repeated the theme in United States v Brewer (139 US 278, 288 [1891]), still with no mention of the Constitution. Instead, these early decisions relied mostly on the familiar rule of construction that penal laws should be construed strictly, in the accused's favor ( see Note, Indefinite Criteria of Definiteness in Statutes, 45 Harv L Rev 160, 160 n 2 [1931] [hereinafter Note, Indefinite Criteria ]). Courts soon came to believe that prosecution under a nullified or void statute amounts to a constitutional violation ( see International Harvester Co. v Kentucky, 234 US 216 [1914]; see generally Note, Indefinite Criteria, 45 Harv L Rev at 160 n 3). Eventually, the Supreme Court characterized vagueness as a due process infirmity, holding that a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law ( see Connally v General Constr. Co., 269 US 385, 391 [1926]). Our own decisional law took a similar path. We spoke early of the need for clear statutory warnings to alert people as to prohibited conduct ( see People v Phyfe, 136 NY 554, 558-559 [1893]; see also People v Taylor, 192 NY 398, 400 [1908]). By 1932, we equated vagueness with unconstitutionality ( see People v Grogan, 260 NY 138, 145-149 [1932]) and in 1973 struck down a vague loitering statute on due process grounds ( see People v Berck, 32 NY2d 567 [1973]). [5] We did so again nine years later when dealing with a noise control ordinance ( see People v New York Trap Rock Corp., 57 NY2d 371 [1982]), and most recently, when upholding a challenge to another loitering statute ( see People v Bright, 71 NY2d 376 [1988]). [6] In addressing vagueness challenges, courts have developed a two-part test. [7] The first essentially restates the classical notice doctrine: To ensure that no person is punished for conduct not reasonably understood to be prohibited, the court must determine whether the statute in question is sufficiently definite `to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute' ( People v Nelson, 69 NY2d 302, 307 [1987]; see also People v Foley, 94 NY2d 668, 681 [2000]; Grayned v City of Rockford, 408 US 104, 108 [1972]; Papachristou v City of Jacksonville, 405 US 156, 162 [1972]). Second, the court must determine whether the enactment provides officials with clear standards for enforcement ( see Nelson, 69 NY2d at 307; Kolender v Lawson, 461 US 352, 357 [1983]; Grayned, 408 US at 109). This requirement is closely related to the first. If a statute is so vague that a potential offender cannot tell what conduct is against the law, neither can a police officer. A vague statute impermissibly delegates basic policy determinations to the police (and eventually to judges and juries) for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application ( Grayned, 408 US at 108-109; see also Nelson, 69 NY2d at 307). Put differently, if a criminal statute is impermissibly vague, the police will be guided not by clear language but by whim. The use of precise language will ensure that both requirements are met.