Opinion ID: 152984
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Association with Criminal Street Gangs

Text: The term criminal street gang is cabined by a clear statutory definition that would permit Green to comply with the condition and permit officers to consistently enforce the condition. See Simmons, 343 F.3d at 81-82 (finding that a condition of supervised release related to pornography did not violate due process, because the term was defined by federal statute). A criminal street gang is defined in the United States Code as: an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons (A) that has as 1 of its primary purposes the commission of 1 or more of the criminal offenses described in subsection (c); (B) the members of which engage, or have engaged within the past 5 years, in a continuing series of offenses described in subsection (c); and (C) the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 521(a). The statutory definition distinguishes this case from the one other instance of which we are aware of a court in the Second Circuit dealing with a prohibition from gang association. The Southern District of New York struck down a prohibition from associating with any member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang or any other outlaw motorcycle gang as unconstitutionally vague. LoFranco v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, 986 F.Supp. 796 (S.D.N.Y.1997), aff'd 175 F.3d 1008 (2d Cir.1999) (unpublished). Importantly, however, unlike criminal street gang, the phrase outlaw motorcycle gang has no statutory definition. The only other circuit of which we are aware to address association with criminal street gangs specifically found the prohibition constitutional. See United States v. Vega, 545 F.3d 743, 749 (9th Cir.2008) (finding that a provision prohibiting probationer from associating with any member of any criminal street gang as directed by the Probation Officer, specifically, any member of the Harpys street gang did not violate due process); United States v. Soltero, 510 F.3d 858, 865 (9th Cir.2007) (per curiam) (upholding condition that prohibited probationer from associating with any known member of any criminal street gang ... as directed by the Probation Officer, specifically, any known member of the Delhi street gang). Like the condition here, both conditions in the Ninth Circuit cases used an example of a particular gang the probationer was to avoid. And of course, those cases assumed, as do we, constitutionally required limitations on the breadth of association, including that the prohibition only limits association with gang members known to the probationer, and excludes incidental contacts. See Arciniega v. Freeman, 404 U.S. 4, 4, 92 S.Ct. 22, 30 L.Ed.2d 126 (1971) (per curiam). The statutory background of the federal criminal law gives the phrase criminal street gang provision a constitutionally sufficient foundation, and this part of the condition is therefore not unconstitutionally overbroad.