Opinion ID: 1408111
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants' Fifth Amendment Void-for-vagueness Challenge to Provisions (a) and (k)

Text: We consider next the claim of defendants that provisions (a) and (k) of the interlocutory injunction are void for vagueness. (See, e.g., Note, The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine In the Supreme Court (1960) 109 U. Pa. L.Rev. 67.) Here again, the Court of Appeal was persuaded of the merits of defendants' constitutional challenge to the preliminary decree, ruling that provisions (a) and (k) were unconstitutionally vague and thus unenforceable. Although, as we pointed out in Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1069, 1109 [40 Cal. Rptr.2d 402, 892 P.2d 1145], [t]he concepts of vagueness and overbreadth are related, there are important differences. A clear and precise enactment may nevertheless be `overbroad' if in its reach it prohibits constitutionally protected conduct. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) 408 U.S. 104, 114 [92 S.Ct. 2294, 2302, 33 L.Ed.2d 222], fn. omitted.) (10) Unlike the doctrine of overbreadth, which focuses on the impact of a statute on the conduct of persons not before the court, the claim that a law is unconstitutionally vague is not dependent on the interests of absent third parties. Instead, the underlying concern is the core due process requirement of adequate notice. No one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids. ( Lanzetta v. New Jersey (1939) 306 U.S. 451, 453 [59 S.Ct. 618, 619, 83 L.Ed. 888], fn. omitted; see also People v. Heitzman (1994) 9 Cal.4th 189, 199-200 [37 Cal. Rptr.2d 236, 886 P.2d 1229].) The operative corollary is 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. ( Connally v. General Construction Co. (1926) 269 U.S. 385, 391 [46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322].) In its more recent applications of the vagueness doctrine, the high court has also expressed a concern for the potential for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement inherent in vague statutes. (See, e.g., Smith v. Goguen (1974) 415 U.S. 566, 574 [94 S.Ct. 1242, 1248, 39 L.Ed.2d 605] [We recognize that in a noncommercial context behavior as a general rule is not mapped out in advance on the basis of statutory language. In such cases, perhaps the most meaningful aspect of the vagueness doctrine is not actual notice, but the other principal element of the doctrine  the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement. (Fn. omitted.)]; Kolender v. Lawson (1983) 461 U.S. 352, 357 [103 S.Ct. 1855, 1858, 75 L.Ed.2d 903] [doctrine seeks to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.].) Thus, a law that is void for vagueness not only fails to provide adequate notice to those who must observe its strictures, but also impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, 408 U.S. at pp. 108-109 [92 S.Ct. at pp. 2298-2299], fn. omitted.) The scope of permissible challenges to a law based on grounds of vagueness differs in another important respect from challenges based on overbreadth. While a claim of overbreadth may succeed if it is shown that the law at issue is substantially overbroad, that is, affects more than a marginal group of those potentially subject to its sweep ( Broadrick v. Oklahoma, supra, 413 U.S. at p. 615 [93 S.Ct. at p. 2918]), a claim that a law is unconstitutionally vague can succeed only where the litigant demonstrates, not that it affects a substantial number of others, but that the law is vague as to her or impermissibly vague in all of its applications.  ( Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates (1982) 455 U.S. 489, 497-498 [102 S.Ct. 1186, 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d 362], italics added; see also Parker v. Levy (1974) 417 U.S. 733, 755-757 [94 S.Ct. 2547, 2561-2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439]; Tribe, American Constitutional Law (2d ed. 1988) § 12-32, p. 1036.) (11) We begin our consideration of defendants' vagueness claims with a pair of principles endorsed by the United States Supreme Court as reliable guides for applying the doctrine in particular cases. The first principle is derived from the concrete necessity that abstract legal commands must be applied in a specific context. A contextual application of otherwise unqualified legal language may supply the clue to a law's meaning, giving facially standardless language a constitutionally sufficient concreteness. Indeed, in evaluating challenges based on claims of vagueness, the court has said [t]he particular context is all important. ( Communications Assn. v. Douds (1950) 339 U.S. 382, 412 [70 S.Ct. 674, 691, 94 L.Ed. 925].) We recently made the same point in Tobe v. City of Santa Ana, supra, 9 Cal.4th at page 1107, when we said the Court of Appeal erred in holding that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague. The terms which the Court of Appeal considered vague are not so when the purpose clause of the ordinance is considered and the terms are read in that context as they should be. (Italics added.) This observation is particularly apropos here. The second guiding principle is the notion of  reasonable specificity ( Coates v. City of Cincinnati (1971) 402 U.S. 611, 614 [91 S.Ct. 1686, 1688, 29 L.Ed.2d 214], italics added) or `[ r ] easonable certainty.' ( People v. Victor (1965) 62 Cal.2d 280, 300 [42 Cal. Rptr. 199, 398 P.2d 391], italics added; see also In re Marriage of Walton (1972) 28 Cal. App.3d 108, 116 [104 Cal. Rptr. 472] [statute will not be held void for vagueness if any reasonable and practical construction can be given its language or if its terms may be made reasonably certain by reference to other definable sources].) As the high court has pointed out, few words possess the precision of mathematical symbols, most statutes must deal with untold and unforeseen variations in factual situations, and the practical necessities of discharging the business of government inevitably limit the specificity with which legislators can spell out prohibitions. Consequently, no more than a reasonable degree of certainty can be demanded. Nor is it unfair to require that one who deliberately goes perilously close to an area of proscribed conduct shall take the risk that he may cross the line. ( Boyce Motor Lines v. United States (1952) 342 U.S. 337, 340 [72 S.Ct. 329, 330-331, 96 L.Ed. 367].) In short, [c]ondemned to the use of words, we can never expect mathematical certainty from our language. ( Grayned v. City of Rockford, supra, 408 U.S. at p. 110 [92 S.Ct. at p. 2300], fn. omitted.) (12) In the Court of Appeal's view, provision (a)'s prohibition against associating with any other known `VST' ... or `VSL' ... member might apply to a circumstance in which a defendant was engaged in one of the prohibited activities with someone known to the police but not known to him to be a gang member. According to the Court of Appeal, such indefiniteness presented a classic case of vagueness. We agree that in such a hypothetical case, the City would have to establish a defendant's own knowledge of his associate's gang membership to meet its burden of proving conduct in violation of the injunction. Far from being a classic instance of constitutional vagueness, however, we think the element of knowledge is fairly implied in the decree. To the extent that it might not be, we are confident that the trial court will, as the Court of Appeal did in People v. Garcia (1993) 19 Cal. App.4th 97, 103 [23 Cal. Rptr.2d 340], impose such a limiting construction on paragraph (a) by inserting a knowledge requirement should an attempt be made to enforce that paragraph of the injunction. With that minor emendation, the text of provision (a) passes scrutiny under the vagueness doctrine. (13) The Court of Appeal found paragraph (k), enjoining defendants from confronting, intimidating, annoying, harassing, threatening, challenging, provoking, assaulting and/or battering any residents or patrons, or visitors to `Rocksprings' ... known to have complained about gang activities, impermissibly vague in two respects. First, like paragraph (a), it speaks of persons known to have complained about gang activities, without indicating how or even whether a defendant is to be charged with this knowledge. The discussion with respect to the knowledge requirement of provision (a) of the decree applies equally to this provision and, so construed, it too passes muster. Second, according to the Court of Appeal, provision (k) fails to define sufficiently the words confront, annoy, provoke, challenge, or harass; it thus fails to provide a standard of conduct for those whose activities are proscribed. Yet similar words were upheld against claims of vagueness by the Supreme Court in Madsen, supra, 512 U.S. 753. There, the high court affirmed injunctive relief prohibiting petitioners from engaging in similar  if not more broadly phrased  conduct: `intimidating, harassing, touching, pushing, shoving, crowding or assaulting persons entering or leaving.' ( Id. at pp. 760-761 [114 S.Ct. at p. 2522].) We find nothing in the context of this case, factually similar in many respects to the situation before the court in Madsen, that makes the same words, sufficiently definite there, somehow constitutionally infirm here. Here again, [t]he particular context is all important. ( Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, 339 U.S. 382, 412 [70 S.Ct. 674, 691].) The words of provision (k) which the Court of Appeal considered irretrievably vague are simply not, at least in the constitutional sense, when the objectives of the injunction are considered and the words of the provision are read in context. Finally, the declarations filed by the City in support of preliminary relief leave little doubt as to what kind of conduct the decree seeks to enjoin. One Rocksprings resident recounted an incident in which gang members had threatened to cut out the tongue of her nine-year-old daughter if she talked to the police; she stated that other residents had been threatened as well. Another resident reported her neighbor's property had been vandalized and the resident threatened after complaining to police that gang members had urinated in her garage. A police officer declared Rocksprings residents had told him gang members confront and threaten them with physical violence when asked to leave residential property. Others refused to furnish declarations, fearing for their lives if any gang member should discover their identities. We conclude neither of the two provisions should have been invalidated by the Court of Appeal on vagueness grounds.