Opinion ID: 3134317
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Loitering With a Criminal Street Gang Member

Text: First, the city argues that the ordinance prohibits loitering with the additional element of being with a member of a criminal street gang. Initially, we must observe that, literally read, the gang loitering ordinance does not prohibit loitering with a criminal street gang member. Rather, the ordinance requires only that the arresting officer have a reasonable belief that one person in a group of loiterers is a gang member. However, a reasonable belief, or probable cause, is insufficient to support a criminal conviction. See People v. Nash , 173 Ill. 2d 423, 431 (1996). In addition, this added element is itself vague, as it conveys no precise warning of the proscribed conduct understandable by an ordinary person. An individual standing on a street corner with a group of people has no way of knowing whether an approaching police officer has a reasonable belief that the group contains a member of a criminal street gang. That condition depends solely on the police officer's subjective evaluation of the facts of the situation in light of his own experience. See Kolender , 461 U.S. at 368-69, 75 L. Ed. 2d at 916, 103 S. Ct. at 1864 (Brennan, J., concurring). If the city intended to require actual knowledge on a defendant's part of another loiterer's gang membership, then that knowledge must be established as a fact in order to support a conviction. See Lanzetta , 306 U.S. at 458, 83 L. Ed. at 893, 59 S. Ct. at 621; accord People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna , 14 Cal. 4th 1090, 929 P.2d 596, 60 Cal. Rptr. 2d 277 (1997) (imposing requirement of actual knowledge on part of defendant of other party's gang membership status in order for injunction to pass scrutiny under the vagueness doctrine). Although the ordinance provides an affirmative defense which allows the defendant to show that no one in the group was actually a gang member, this affirmative defense does not cure the defect. Showing that one person in a group of loiterers is a gang member does not ultimately prove that a defendant had knowledge of that fact. Furthermore, even adding a knowing association with a gang member to the act of loitering is still insufficient because the city cannot “forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate activity, even if that activity is criminal in nature” ( People v. Nash , 173 Ill. 2d 423, 431-32 (1996), citing Brandenburg v. Ohio , 395 U.S. 444, 448-49, 23 L. Ed. 2d 430, 434-35, 89 S. Ct. 1827, 1830 (1969)).